


Subjective Realities

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Torture, We're Sick People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 03:23:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 68,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>St. Bart's was a fucked up place.</p><p>They weren't very good at their jobs, and their security was shit. When a man with a duffle bag could rush the stairs unchecked all the way to the roof while they were forming a crime scene down below for a man who'd just jumped from the ledge, it was fucked. When he saw a jumper, the first thing he thought of was looking to see who'd pushed them. It was a good reason to hide his tracks, but there he was, carrying a sniper rifle up to the roof of a hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

St. Bart's was a fucked up place.

They weren't very good at their jobs, and their security was shit. When a man with a duffle bag could rush the stairs unchecked all the way to the roof while they were forming a crime scene down below for a man who'd just jumped from the ledge, it was fucked. When he saw a jumper, the first thing he thought of was looking to see who'd pushed them. It was a good reason to hide his tracks, but there he was, carrying a sniper rifle up to the roof of a hospital.

Jim hadn't sent him any sort of victory text. Nothing. Not a word, not a whisper, and Jim would never, ever fail to gloat over something as magnificent as putting Sherlock Holmes entirely in his place.

They weren't normal. Bastian knew it. For god's sake, who didn't know it once they had run into Jim? Fuck. Ninety-five percent of Jim's cadre of accomplices and conspirators lived in terror of them both. The other five percent clearly belonged in the fucking nut hatch, but a man made do with what he had.

He wasn't sure what had happened -- had a ruck full of ideas -- but he wasn't sure until he saw the body sprawled on the roof, the shining black pool stretching out from his head. Bastian didn't stop when he saw it. Just kept walking, his chest gone tight and hard. Holmes hadn't, had he? It seemed out of character of the man. Jim might have done it to the swot, but Holmes seemed to have a distinct dislike of direct violence in relation to himself. To committing murder, in any case.

Anything involving a corpse was fair game, rumor had it. Explained a lot, he thought, kneeling down. Blood, sticky, thick, rotten copper stench, wet the knee of his trousers, and he didn't give a damn. Real blood, hint of something that made him think of antiseptic, mixed with black powder. Jesus. He put a hand on the side of Jim's neck, just because. Warm skin, not that it meant a damn thing. "You stupid bastard."

All because he _had_ to beat the jackass who had jumped off of the roof.

At least he had that much by way of comfort. Holmes was dead, and maybe he'd be able to drag Jim up from the depths of hell if he worked at it a bit. The vague mumble of sound, barely there, hardly heard, made him reach down, pull open Jim's mouth to look inside. If he could see out through a hole in his head, that'd be it. Jim wasn't the sort of man who'd want to live as a vegetable. He was all brain, scorching brilliance, and then choking, gurgling when Bastian slid a finger into his mouth and touched the roof, gagging and arching up, choking loud enough to make him pull his hand out, tugging Jim upright and sitting. "You stupid, stupid fucker. Bastard. What the hell!"

Garbled fuckwad of an answer, wild brown eyes rolling, blood spitting every-fucking-where. Christ on a crutch. "Nnnn. 's...jumbp?" Couldn't even talk properly, the ass. Then again, he was lucky it was just the roof of his mouth that seemed to be most fucked up. It was a miracle it hadn't blown out that amazingly thick brain.

"Stupid, fucking..." That was the antiseptic tinge, that little hint of fermentation. Old blood from who knew what -- better than chocolate for a nice flow and good trick. He got Jim's head braced on his shoulder, and hauled his short ass sitting upright. "Yeah, he jumped. He jumped, you idiot, you could've blown your fucking brains out!"

"Whun." It sounded like hell. His tongue was probably burned as shit, no matter how careful Bastian had been when he'd packed the fucking blanks. Idiot. He had said as much, told him he was a damned fool, for all of the attention he'd been paid. "Jumbd."

"He jumped. I confirmed it, called it off." As per orders. He'd expected Jim to use it to walk Sherlock off the edge, not... not put it in his fucking mouth, and there wasn't time to rip him apart for it, not yet. Not until they were out of there. But Jim was loose and rolling with it. Fucker was probably concussed, too. Jesus, he needed a doctor. Standing on top of a fucking hospital and he couldn't take him down for fear of what they would figure out. Sometimes, smart people were incredibly fucking stupid.

"You can't even stand, can you? You miserable stupid cunning bastard." He shifted, weight on the balls of his feet long enough to sling the duffle over his shoulder, and tighten the strap to hold it against his chest. It would draw more attention that way, but there was no way he could leave the gun. Jim needed to be carried. He was drooling blood by the time Bastian hoisted him up in his arms.

There was something mumbled, ridiculously garbled. It sounded something about drugs, and then Jane Austen, or perhaps not. He would be lucky if he'd not blown his brains to hell including the roof of his mouth. Never mind his sinuses, but his eyes seemed in working order.

They were rolling around and then focusing and then rolling again. Fuck, fuck, he needed a doctor and... and the only one that came to mind was a horrible call. He was down there on the ground dying inside. He took a moment, braced a knee on the cement, and stood. Had to move fast before anyone got the bright idea to check the roof. There had to be a way to maybe snag a doctor as a hostage, briefly. They didn't have time for the usual elaborate blackmail.

There was only one thing to do. He didn't much like it -- nobody did, he expected -- but sometimes a man ran out of choices. The fact that he was covered in gore and it was still leaking out of Jim was a fair sign that he was out of them. He knew a couple of shady docs -- not the useful kinds, the ones that weren't even good to clean up bodies. They just caused them, for all the worst, most useless reasons.

The hardest part was getting Jim out of the hospital. He took the stairs, moving fast, feet on the edges of each step, fast, fast fast. There was a back exit, and he knew it had to be there. The fire alarm went off when he finally pushed his way out somewhere near the ambulance bay. He ignored it, rushing towards the street because he had a Sportka tucked around the corner. It was dark and small and unlikely to attract attention, never mind the fucking traffic.

Once he was around the corner, he rolled Jim into the passenger seat, threw his gun in the back, and took off before he'd even shut the door. All he got for his trouble was another groan, mumbled noises, a cough that had to hurt like fire from the way his body seized. "Stupid fucking idiot."

Laughter. Jesus, he was such a fuckwad. A mad, insensible, moronic genius of a fuckwad.

"You're going to choke yourself." Worse than he already had, but he didn't say that, just idled his way into traffic and took the first turnoff he could. "I'll strangle you before I let you choke to death."

It settled down to chortles and moans after that. If Bastian hadn't already known he was a masochistic little fucker, he would have been worried. There was no point, at least not on account of the pain. He was breathing, and the pain wasn't a concern. Finding out if he was bleeding in the brain was, because he would've found that shit funny, too. It wasn't; it was angry-making, hot seeping, crawling up his chest fury, because watching John's expression as Sherlock jumped had been lovely and then Jim had been dead on the roof only not. That was too close, too close for comfort as he took another turn, heading deeper down side streets, counting houses because he knew where that bastard lived.

He managed to get to the back end of hell, wherever the shit that was, and there was even the good luck to find someplace to park the car. If it had been necessary, he would have left it on the street, but apparently he had some kind of luck today. No matter how shitty it was.

Dragging Jim out of the car was a pain in the ass. He flailed vaguely, one hand smacking Bastian in the nose. It stung like hell, and if the bastard hadn't been halfway to having his damned brains blown out, he expected that he would have punched him in the face. As it was, he managed to get him into his arms again and make his way to the door. It took a ridiculous amount of banging before the arsehole opened the door, looking at him through silver-rimmed glasses with eyes the same color and not even as warm. "You again."

"Me again," he confirmed at the scrawny fucker, narrow little blond man that he wanted to shove through a sewer grate except he needed him just then. "I need you to look at my friend. Let me in." His arms were screaming at him, but he wasn't going to let go of Jim, even if his leg was twitching like a rabbit.

"I was in the middle of something." Malgueret moved to the side, though, and let him in. "Don't drip any of that on my floor, or I'll add the cost of the cleaning to the bill." Of course he would, and a glance into the sitting room proved why he was pissier than usual. Undoubtedly anyone would be if they had a tall, dark, ridiculously unattractive woman waiting there half-naked, knees sprawled open and smoking a joint.

Ha. Jim made a vague hand motion, all flutter and twitchiness. It made Bastian's jaw tighten.

"There was an accident." The blood packets Jim had packed into the collar of his ridiculously expensive coat made the whole thing seem worse. At least that was what he was hoping. Jim’s eyes were half open again, roaming, confused. Definitely concussed, but still breathing through his mouth. "Where do you want him?"

Thin lips pressed together in thought. "Back room. I'll need the light." He probably used it for purposes even Bastian didn't want to consider if the truth were known. "And wipe that look off of your face. You came to me, as I recall."

"There weren't many options." Bastian moved to the back room, where he knew the bastard had a good directional fluorescent light and all the equipment. He didn't need anesthesia for Jim.

The table was just as permanently stained as ever, but he laid Jim out on it with care, careful to keep his head straight and supported. "What stupidly erroneous consideration has brought all of this to pass? That much is clear." Malgueret was pulling on latex gloves, the snap of them at his wrists audible. "Seems to be old blood, mostly. I can smell that all of it isn't. Sullivan!" The yell was loud in the small room. "Come along. You'll find this interesting."

"Misfired a blank." Why he still tried to cover for the fact that Jim was past unhinged, Bastian didn't know. It was stunning when it had a brilliant outcome, but when Jim was gurgling in his own blood and had probably cleared the top layer of skin out of his sinuses, he felt an urge to cover for him. He kept Jim's head steady when he started to cough again, drying sticky blood clinging to his fingers. "Jesus."

"You realize you had ought to go to emergency." It didn't take a genius to see that. "Sullivan!"

"We just killed a man at St. Bart's. It's sort of problematic." Plus it was hard to explain gunshot wounds even at the most jaded of casualties. Though he supposed if he stabilized Jim and went back now it might be possible to pull off. The problem was letting Jim out of his sight after everything that had been in the news. He'd never been so high profile before, so wide and obvious to so many people as he was now as Richard Brook. It was time to go away, not to get called out in the news as _Harassed Unemployed Storyteller Tries To Off Self_. Or however the story would go. Too fucking high profile.

Sullivan came in looking pissed off, and slightly less high than when they'd come in. "Oh, he finally gave himself a skylight."

"Inevitable, really. He's half mad on a good day." There were cotton swabs and anesthetics, various medical items Bastian decided not to contemplate.

Jim gurgled, gave that disconcerting chortle as if he were so pleased with himself that swallowing all of the blood didn't bother him in the least. "Fuck off. You'd've been to prison ten times over if it weren't for Jim." He shifted, swapping hands to strip his jacket off to wad it up under Jim's head to elevate it a little, but not so much he'd start choking again. "What do you want me to do?"

Malgueret was peering into Jim's mouth, prodding with swabs and getting a response made up of grunts and something like objection. "Well, for one thing, I expect you're going to need a surgeon."

"Fuck. Fuck. Fine. Can you stabilize him and I'll take him back to fucking St. Bart's? Or I'll just dial for an ambulance right here." That was just his luck in life, so he was glad Jim might not remember the fiasco.

That angry scowl wasn't unexpected. "You can't call for emergency to come here, you blithering idiot! Sullivan...."

"Ugh, just have him tilt his head forward." She held a wad of sterile padding out at him. "Anyway, they take forever to get here, and you drive faster. He's cleft his own palate."

Slanted grey eyes tilted at him, sardonic amusement written in them. "Bet you told him it was spectacularly stupid, too. What possessed him?"

He kept up a constant litany of fuck fuck fuck in his head, watching them both smirk while Sullivan kept the padding held up against Jim's nose. Bastian pulled him upright once more, taking a moment before he hauled him into his arms again. "Have you watched the news? What the glorious fuck do you think possessed him? Dammit, get the door."

"I think he got ahead of himself. You hear that, Jim? Ahead of yourself." Christ, Malgueret had balls the size of cantaloupes. "For fuck's sake, think a bit longer next time. I shan't like going to jail if you actually blow off your head next time."

He kicked the bottom edge of the bastard's front door, just enough to jerk the hinge hard, and stormed down the steps, while the intoxicated bint held it open and got the hell out of his way. Back to St. Bart's then, but at least he had an idea of what he'd done to himself, which was more than the doctors would've given him. He'd had time, too, time to get his shit together, to put on the sort of acting job that he was generally terrible at and that sort of incident needed.

At least he had managed to remove Jim from the original scene. That was something, surely, and he'd take what he could get, even if that meant trying to figure out more lies to tell when he got Jim back to emergency.

Fucking Malgueret.

It'd be easy enough. Harassed actor tries to suicide with a prop gun. It explained the blanks nicely, too, and there were a few burn apartments he could give if someone needed an address. Jim from IT still had a place, mostly just to piss off Bastian. 

He focused on the story more than that Jim was making less noise.

* * *

He'd left long enough to put up his gun and get a bit of paper forged to prove his relationship with Richard Brook. He changed his clothes, scrubbed the blood off of his hands, and headed back there doggedly with two of Jim's cellphones and his own, intent on finding where they'd moved him. Surely by the time he had managed that, whatever surgical measures they had needed to make would be finished.

The hospital was busy, people moving left and right, murmurs regarding the death of Sherlock Holmes just at the edge of his hearing, humans, telly, whatever the case. Bastian wondered how long it would be before they were dragging Jim out into the spotlight, blinking and shy smiles when he would much rather be plotting the downfall of someone.

Jim would do it, as one last dig at the man. That was the problem with fake names and himself. He still had a family and a whole unit who recognized him and would never believe he was someone else. He was ready, but he'd have to play his cover by ear with those bloody fucking cameras around. Damn, he hadn't thought again, too many wires to trip himself up on. He stopped by the nurses' desk, and politely waited for one of them to have a moment.

When one finally stopped, she was smiling. "Yes, sir?" Young, pretty. Red curls and blue eyes, young enough that she didn't seem to have lost the shine off of her enthusiasm. "May I help you?"

"I brought a man in earlier. He'd..." He hesitated like a normal person would. "There was an accident with a stage pistol."

The moment when the truth of things registered made him want to flinch. "Oh. Oh, poor Mr. Brook, yes. I recall. Oh, but it's past visiting hours now...."

"I don't want him to wake up alone." He was going to stay as vague as possible for as long as possible, hedging his bets. "And I'm tired of the news people harassing him. It hasn't gotten out yet, has it?" He didn't care about Sherlock bloody jumped off a roof Holmes, both in character and in reality, because he'd driven or led Jim to do that stupid fucking stunt.

Cunt.

"Yes, well, I'm afraid it's family only..." She was nibbling at her lip, though, nervous and thoughtful. She was inclined to give in to him, he could tell.

Brother or live in, brother or live in. He exhaled, hands in his pockets, posture casual. "Please. He's my flatmate. We're... I don't want him alone right now. Considering." Worst case, he'd go up a floor and try another nurse.

It seemed to be quite enough for her, because her eyes went soft and understanding. "Oh. Ohhh, yes, of course, I can help you to his room, then."

"Thanks. I appreciate it." He managed to keep the same posture, to hold the moment in his head right by focusing on the memory of Jim choking blood, his noises going quiet, his anger at Jim for doing that to himself. There was nothing else to say to her, because Jim had tried to kill himself and probably just forgotten for a moment that it was a carefully made blank.

He didn't know what to do about that or where to start or... Anything at all. What the hell was he supposed to do? He had been following along after Jim for so damned long that he wasn't even sure what to do with himself anymore if he wasn't following along.

"Here we are. I think he's quite comfortable for now. Doctor Bellingham said that he had managed to repair a fair amount of the damage, and the pain should be quite manageable." She was still smiling, and he glanced down, taking note of her name tag.

"Thank you, Deborah. He's always sort of squeamish about being uncomfortable." And then his eyes slid over to Jim and oh god that was so fucking wrong. There were tubes and things and a white gown and white sheets, and his eyes were closed, eyelashes lingering unnaturally against his cheeks. It'd just been such a long fucking year -- first Jim'd gone missing. He'd managed that, because Jim had expected it and told him it was coming and he'd had a fucking to-do list about pretending to be Jim that he didn't have time to do much more than wait. Then prison, but that was all planned. This was different, this wasn't part of the plan.

This was horrible.

"Can I get you something, sir?" He was getting that sympathetic expression she had, all doe-eyed and looking at him as though her compassion could well up and over and spill on the floor.

Bastian hated her already. "No, no. I'll just, uh..." He headed for the bed and the tiny plastic chair and couldn't stop looking at Jim because if he looked at her and her sympathetic eyes, he was going to punch the bitch. It would be easier to crunch himself down into the tiny chair, just staring at Jim. "Jesus."

"Of course. You look a little pale, perhaps...?"

Jesus. Fucking Jim.

He worked for a fucking moron. Bastian rubbed a hand over his face when he sat down, hunching up close to the edge of the bed. Everything was all stitched up fine and well, but if Jim really wanted to die he'd be gone in a heartbeat and nothing Bastian could do would stop him. Everything, his whole world was inside his head and things he let get in there and... Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

His sinuses were stinging, and that was madness. "I'll be fine right here, thanks."

"Of course, sir." Of course, and she patted his hand, a tissue coming out of some hidden nurse-like pocket and slipping into his hand. "If you need anything, just press the call button."

"Thanks." He didn't relax until she was gone, and he managed to sniff a few times. He didn't need a fucking tissue. He needed to take a couple of deep breaths, and then read the chart on the end of the bed. Now that the worst of it was fixed, maybe he could call someone in to do something a bit more.

Something that would get them out of here and away from the idiot nurse with the soft face because even with her gone, he still could feel her eyes on him. He rattled around the room for a minute, checking the window seals, the corners, looking for any hidden cameras. It took him a good fifteen minutes before he grabbed the chart and sat back down. "You're an idiot. Just once in my life, I get to say that and mean it. You're an idiot. You're an idiot who..." He started to read, scanning, eyes dancing over words like medically induced coma and palate defect. "If you've brain damaged yourself..."

He would put the damned gun back in his mouth with proper ammunition and solve the problem. Since Jim was bug-fuck crazy enough to make that effort, he might do it again. If he didn't come back full and proper as himself, there was no point in letting him live any other way. It would be unbearable to him.

It would be unbearable to Bastian. Jim was a crazy, mean fucker, the kind of guy who tazed him for fun and put sedatives in his food so he could see what it was like to fuck a corpse without having to dig one up, the kind of guy who laughed when someone gave him a black eye, and then made whoever it was (usually Bastian) regret it. He was brilliant and if he woke up less than perfectly precisely smarter than the whole world, there wasn't any point in him living.

Decision made, Bastian settled into the chair to sleep and wait.

* * *

Sleeping was a novel concept when it mostly involved molded plastic chairs that were meant to encourage a man to go home instead of remaining in the hospital. He was sore, stiff and in need of a good piss when he woke, so he made the effort to stretch out his limbs and leave the room, looking for a restroom before he ducked down into the hospital cafeteria. There was something that was clearly meant to be meat but made Bastian wonder if they weren't recycling human remains in the cafeteria, just to stretch the budget a little further. Limp toast, boxes of cereal that weren't large enough to feed a four year-old, and the tea was...

He'd had better in third world countries. By quite a significant margin.

It was just as much of a fucking travesty as him being there because Jim was a fucking arse. Bastian felt a little less fucked up and desperate, but he supposed that might return if he gave himself half a second to think about it. He grabbed a sad box of cereal and an orange that'd seen better days, and headed back up to the room to resume his watch. The only thing he could do was watch and protect, and if he had to do that by stopping doctors and nurses from messing up with Jim, then it'd have to do. He'd just have to do his own version of shy smiles and sheepish shrugs that Jim had affected. He was completely fucking awful at anything like that. Just thinking about it made his jaw clench and his head ache. Then again, he supposed that might be the result of sleeping in those wretched chairs.

Still, if he looked miserable and pissed off by the time he reached Jim's room, it was perfectly understandable given the too real cover story he had going on. He was a selfish asshole's flatmate, and he was going above and beyond, Bastian decided as he nudged open the door.

Fucking red-headed tarts. They always seemed to come out of the fucking woodwork. Shame that someone might see him toting her body out of the room.

"Hello." He pitched it confused and curious all at once, shutting the door behind him. "I think you should be going now."

"Oh." The woman’s mouth was pursed, slick with lipstick, a little motion of surprise that was annoying as fuck. "Hello. I, ah. I was helping Richard. I'm Kitty. Kitty Reilly. It's so very nice to meet you and yet... what did Sherlock Holmes do to him?"

He tilted his head a little as he set the sad orange and cereal box down on the little table beside Jim's bed. The crack of his neck was impressive sounding, even to him. "Didn't lay a hand on him. Didn't have to, after everything in the papers, after everything you printed. He, he had an accident with a prop gun." His mind was working a little better, because Bastian could feel a whole story unfurling for him in case she wanted to talk more and drag anything else for him. The story was simple, though, connect the dots.

Any idiot could make it out. Anyone. Neither Jim nor Sherlock Holmes required. "And you are...?"

"Bastian. I'm his flat-mate." He sat down in the chair beside Jim's bed -- Richard, hah -- and gave her an openly displeased expression. "I was deployed when all of this shit was going on, and I'm not, this, you. Stop now."

"Oh." Oh, as if that made any sense at all. As if it were some quantifiable expression of knowledge or interest. Who the fuck knew. "I, ah. He didn't mention..."

"Apparently." He crossed his legs loosely, and picked up the orange to start peeling it. "He's probably brain dead now, so if you could just take your story and your bloody Sherlock Holmes questions with you..."

If she lost any more color, the bitch would be translucent. "Oh my god. I am... so, so sorry. He was so afraid, but I thought, surely...."

Bastian pushed his thumb through the skin of the orange, because it was the orange or her eye and he fancied not doing a stint behind bars. "Surely, no repercussions could come of it. Surely, the bastard's brother doesn't work for the Crown or anything important like that. Surely a mid-line actor with a flair for camp'd end up on the decent end of the bargain, right?"

Something about that seemed to devastate her. It shouldn't be so easy. Bastian might not be like Jim but he knew people. He knew all of their soft spots, the little places to dig in both emotionally and physically. The way she flinched said that he hadn't lost his touch despite the circumstances. "I told him. It was very brave of him to come forward and he was so frightened."

"He was scared. Bastard probably told him it was the end of the game. I don't know." He rubbed at the side of his face, knowing he looked angry and defensive. "There's nothing brave about putting a gun in your mouth."

"Oh my god." White turned to green, her hands rising to clasp over her mouth. "God. That horrible man."

He didn't want to watch her turn green, so he finished peeling the orange, having gotten the skin off in one determined, singular piece. He dropped it in the trash, and started to take it apart, moving mechanically. "Yes." Yes, that horrible man. That horrible dead man, and his horrible ruined reputation. If he got nothing else out of it, he could make John Watson fucking miserable vicariously every time he looked at the telly for at least a week, maybe two. "So you've got your story. You can go now."

"Of course. I can't apologize enough. If there is anything I can do...."

She could fucking shut her trap. "You can leave. Please. And if you have any media friends loitering out there, you can tell them to hoof it, too. I don't have the cycles left to deal with him and you lot. If I never hear the name Holmes again, I'll be happy." He gave her a rare truth for her troubles, something she could quote him on if she wanted to and he’d feel no qualms about having it in print.

"Of course." She stumbled as she headed for the door. He hoped she tripped and fell. Stupid bint, encouraging Jim's idiocy.

It didn't take much. He popped a slice of orange in his mouth, because god. Jim'd probably had such fun playing her. He'd probably sat on her sofa and cried, amped up that unnatural hysteria he could turn on with the drop of a hat when he wanted to show it. And she'd thought, _fuck,_ big glittering pounds in her eyes, _this is me making it professionally_. That, that was her getting on Bastian's hit list. The only decider on the timing of the outcome was to see if Jim had the brains left to tell him no, he still had a use for her.

He ate the rest of the orange slowly and waited. Medical personnel came in and out, someone told him what he already knew from the chart. It was hard to be shocked when he had already picked his way past the shitty lock they were using.

Bastian didn't understand why they bothered. He reacted, grim and tight because hearing it was still as horrible as reading it. Jim was a fucking wanker, they'd have no idea of how bad the brain damage was until he came out of the coma, and they wanted to keep him under for another day. And by wanted, they were already at it before he had a chance to protest or not, so he nodded and took the hints that he should go home for a bit, call family and friends, shave. "If you could keep anyone else out of here, I'd appreciate it. That reporter was in here, and I don't want pictures of him like this showing up in news rags." Even if it would've delighted the fuck out of Jim to continue the fiction, it would've made it harder to maintain the fiction that all was well in their criminal empire.

If Jim was going to be brain-damaged and fucked up, it was vitally important that Bastian cover all of it until he'd had a chance to bilk as much out of their various connections as humanly possible.

It wasn't a decision point for liquidate or not. Not yet. He wandered out of the hospital, feeling lost and angry the way he was supposed to, and got back in his car. He could head to his flat, he could... rattle around it. He could head to Jim's flat, rattle around that. That might've been more satisfying, and he settled on it. The _You Have No Privacy_ game was something they played anyway. Or there was harassing Watson. It might at least let him vent some of his gall. Also, making the man twitchy and miserable might make him feel a bit better. Jim had always made mutterings about _counterparts_ , as if John Watson could even begin to measure up to him.

They were similar in type -- madmen and military men. He liked to think of Watson as a dark mirror of himself, brave and capable but not in on the game. That was the shame of it, to be there and yet be a civilian at the same time, uninvolved, the world passing him by. That was his solution, then. Find Watson, stay in character, and possibly get him to pick a fight. At the very least, it would bloody well make him feel better. Going by, calling Watson a _confirmed bachelor_ , maybe getting in a few punches. Maybe taking a few, too.

Determination made, he tucked his hands into his pocket and dropped his head, and tried not to think.

It was easier not to. Think, that was. Horrible, too, because he was usually trying to stretch out the pieces of some bit of work Jim had going or was going to get going. He was balancing the lines he had on people, but that was easy, light to do in texts, still pretending to be Jim.

Everyone tended to do exactly what the psychotic son of a bitch wanted them to do. There was just something about him, Bastian knew. Hell, he'd been known to jump when Jim said. Nothing to be ashamed about there. Most of the rest of the world did the same, he figured. That didn't make him unique, but the fact that he was one of the few people in the world who could resist that urge damn sure did.

Because sometimes Jim was a fucking wanker.

He stopped off and got himself a pint on the walk, because he wanted a drink. Because he needed it for the part, too. He was playing the aggrieved live in, and it was a good outlet for everything he felt. By the time he reached Baker Street, he was lightly toasted, and one hundred percent angry.

Goddamned motherfucker. Egging Jim on, making him crazier than he had to be, it all made him want to hit something... preferably Doctor John Watson, confirmed bachelor. After all, that bastard Holmes was dead. Hitting him would sincerely lack in satisfaction. Even if he could get hold of Holmes, Jim'd probably want him skinned and made into a suit, and the downside of that was that he'd probably make Bastian wear it, the sick fuck. Skin-suits weren't on his to-do list just yet. He leaned hard on the buzzer instead.

There wasn't any kind of answer for a moment and then he leaned on it again, and again, his frustration and anger wrenching its way up from the depths of him until he began to consider breaking windows.

When the door finally opened, it was the old woman, tear-stained and clearly off her guard. "Oh. Hello."

"I need to speak with Doctor Watson." He tried to sound polite, he did. She was old and she reminded him of his grandmother. She’d had been confused at the best of times, and weepy when she wasn't, so he figured he could handle this.

"I'm afraid he isn't taking visitors, dear. All of those dreadful reporters coming 'round, I'm sure you can understand..."

"I do. Believe me, I do." He still took a step forward, firm but gentle at the same time. "It's because of them I need to talk to him." He wasn't about to bowl over an old lady, lighted up or not.

She visibly waffled, hands wringing together. "Are you sure, dear? Only he's grieving. You understand. _Flatmates_ ," she whispered. "Such nice boys. It's such a shame."

"I'm sure. He'll want to know this. It’s about Mr. Brook." And he waited a moment to see if she recognized a damn thing.

"Mr. Brook... Mr. Brook! Why, that... that..." Yes. She knew, and it clearly upset her quite a bit. "No, no, I don't think Dr. Watson, John, I don't think at all...."

"I'm his flatmate. I need to speak with Dr. Watson." He gentled past her, moving steadily, heading up the stairs. "This's gone on long enough."

"But sweetheart, it, you cannot simply... oh, dear heavens. John! Dr. Watson!"

The cry seemed to have caught the appropriate attention because the door opened, and there he was, standing at the top of the stairs and looking down at them. "And what is this, then? Another fucking reporter, wanting to hear that Sherlock was just some tit who wanted to be famous? That he wasn't brilliant, that he was just someone desperate for fame? Well, I can tell you now that I won't give you the satisfaction. In fact, I'm a great deal more likely to punch you in your smug bastard face."

He stretched his fingers, and mounted the first step. "I'm Richard Brook's -- oh, bugger it, you know what? You never bought that story, did you?"

"Fuck you and fuck the lot of you. Did he pay you? Enough so that you're going to keep on, eh, long after his purpose has been met? Where is the little bastard, anyway?" Sincerely lacking a limp, Watson danced down the steps. Funny thing, the mind. "Maybe this is just some sort of way to keep poking at Sherlock, even after he's gone? After Moriarty has just what he wanted."

"That's right. Little bastard's half dead after your fucking flatemate obsessed him, after he -- Christ, moths, flame, moths made out of flame more like it, circling each other. He's probably fucking brain dead, and that's just not right!" He waited, waited for John to get closer, and then he took a swing right for his eye. He could tell Watson wanted it, was antsy for a fight.

With any luck whatsoever, one of them would go tumbling down the stairs and break something. That being done, it might improve both of their moods. The right swing was met with a left meant for his solar plexus that missed just a bit and made him incredibly uncomfortable.

Nice, aiming for the nerves. He staggered back a step, but just to get the room to lunge forward, striking for under Watson's ribs to knock the wind out of him. "You and your fucking bastard flatmate, all I heard about for months now..."

"Fuck off and die!" Even choked, it made him feel better, right up until Watson managed to kick him in the upper thigh.

It stunned his leg, sent him staggering down another step. It was what he got for fighting from low ground. But the pain was brilliant, clearing his head, his eyes past the strangling rage, and he surged forward to grapple the doctor to the ground, taking another shot to his head.

Dammit.

They were tumbling more than anything else, and it was a good thing that they were so close to the landing. Even off-balance and tripping over one another, they'd be on even ground eventually. Bastian couldn't help the sharp, wicked grin that was promptly met with a palm strike so that he tasted blood.

"You fucker. God damned captain!" He got John under him, and kneed him in the stomach, hard, before rising up to strike him again. Not that Watson stayed still. He was all squirming and fists, and they were both satisfyingly bloody.

It was a shock to the system to find himself covered in enough water that he nearly choked at the amount of it. Watson seemed to find it a shock, too, because both of them went still.

"Mrs. Hudson!"

The old lady stood nearby, a rather large tub in her hands. "Well, it works with cats!"

He knelt back, shaking out his hands and panting. It didn't do much for the taste of blood in his mouth, but he did feel better somewhere in his chest. Possibly particularly because Watson was a flattened mess on the floor and he was personally almost capable of standing. "Right."

Wary enough, but definitely less angry. He felt more in his head, and Watson looked better, too. "Right," he agreed. "Now fuck off."

"Right. Good luck with your life." He staggered down the steps from the landing, and bugger, when had his ankle gone funny?

Watson struggled to get up again before he nodded. "Same to you." At least Bastian was pretty sure that he'd gotten off on the slightly better end of the deal. One busted lip didn't seem quite as awful as that spectacular gush of bloody nose. He didn't even remember hitting him there. Still, it could've been the floor or the tumble down. He staggered past the landlady, and stepped back into the street feeling much better than he had when he'd left the hospital. Nearly brilliant, in fact, and at least energized enough to tackle the rest of the evening.

Maybe by the time he made it to tomorrow, things would be looking up.

* * *

He'd slept like shit in the flat, but could at least skip another night or two there by dint of having gone home, showered, and packed himself a small, probably exceedingly metrosexual looking bag for the various electronic bits needed to keep three phones alive, mp3 player and two books. It strangely reminded him that he needed to call his sister and remind her he was still alive, thanks for giving a fuck, and not to bother trying to check in on him for an extended period of time. That he was either out of the country or drunk in a gutter. A or B, whatever caught his fancy.

By the time he'd finished working that conversation out in his head, he'd actually caught himself dialing her and decided, fuck it. He could pack another small duffle for a change of clothes for Jim in the pointless hope that he'd get sprung soon and all would be well in the world. While on the phone with her. One ring, two rings...

_"It's nine in the morning, you tosser. You do realize I was on midnight shift and I've been asleep for all of an hour, yes?"_

"No, forgot what shift you were on this week, Sabrina. Hey, what're the survival odds of a gunshot blank fired in the mouth?" He was kneeling in front of Jim's shrine of shoes, carefully placed shoes in row upon row, trying to guess which ones to grab.

_"Well. If whoever it was survived it, I reckon I've seen worse, what with all the things complete idiots do to themselves. For some reason, people like to poke things that don't belong in various orifices. Blanks have been known to kill people who aren't that bloody stupid."_ He could almost see her frown over the phone. _"What have you gotten yourself into now, Basty?"_

"It's a bit of a long story. I figure I'll be kicking around London for another week or two, and then I'm leaving the country for a while. J... Just been a long couple of months." The last time he'd called, he'd let her talk about her girls and her husband, and Father, and when she'd asked how he was doing, he'd hung up.

_"Sweetheart. You never talk to me anymore. And I know."_ Her voice was hurried. She was probably afraid that he would hang up again. _"I know whatever it is, you don't want to talk about it, or you think no one would love you anymore if you just said, but we do love you. You know that, don't you? And you can come home any time you like."_

Like he was five. Like that time Bastian had run away when he was fifteen, and she'd come home from her first year of college to find exactly where he'd been hiding out, bivvy'd in the middle of the woods. He shifted, leaning forward to pull out a pair of Westwood trainers that were ridiculously expensive. It was like dressing up a bloody vicious fucking doll. He licked his bottom lip. "Have you followed that tabloid crap that's been sort of all over London?"

_"Well of course. I remember that boy. Unnatural, I tell you, and never mind his brother. Mycroft was a year under me in school, and quite impressed with himself no matter how very lazy he could be. Shame, really. For all that Mycroft was a prick, he was just as brilliant as the younger Holmes purported himself to be. Must have been a lot to live up to, I suppose."_

Of course she remembered. He slipped the shoes in the bag, and stood up, contemplating everything else he needed to put in it. "Suppose it was. I'm sort of tangled up in the mess." He exhaled. "Brown shoes, navy suit, what color shirt goes with that?"

_"Pale blue or white, most likely. A dark tie, though. You have suits? Really?"_ Clearly Sabrina was waking up quite well, all things considered. _"One day you will need to tell me what it is that you do. Honestly. Last time you were home, you were all jeans and t-shirts. What did you do to get involved with Sherlock Holmes? I can't imagine that ending well, considering all the blither on the news."_

"No, it isn't. I'm getting a suit together for a friend, in case I can get him discharged from the hospital. He shot himself." Which was bothering him. He hadn't expected it would, but the longer it rattled around in the quiet of his mind the more it pissed him off, the more it gnawed at him. It was just going to keep chewing at him until he got resolution one way or the other.

Bastian pulled the navy blue suit from the closet, and started to look for a pale blue shirt that seemed about right. Jim's flat had an obscene number of closets, and of course, spaces behind them. If it all went to shit, he'd have to remember to liquidate those, too.

_"Dear god. What... no, if I ask that question, you'll hang up and then I shan't hear from you for weeks. If I'm lucky. Perhaps the better question would be whether there is anything that I can do?"_ His sister was always his sister, even when he was a brat. Maybe it was the joy of being the youngest.

"No. The way I see it, they're bringing him out of the drugs soon. If he's all right, we're skipping town for a while. That's why I wanted to call. This number won't be any good if you need to get hold of me. And if he's not all right, I suppose I'll drive up, set the barn on fire or something. I don't know." He was fantasizing about Jim sitting up in bed, bright and fine and angry and confused and determined to try to put his tongue up through the new hole he'd given himself. Could they put an Elizabethan collar on a man's tongue?

The sound of her sigh was soft, tired. _"Oh, Basty. I do wish you would tell me something now and again beyond these random and rather terrifying things. I worry."_

He laughed in the phone, and started to look at ties. Brilliant, murky blood red was always a winner, but he could still smell it in his nose and it had nothing at all to do with his split lip. "I know. I'm not a good brother, am I? I've always been sort of an obsessive fuck. It was why I loved the army."

_"I do still love you. Inevitable, you know, family and all that. You'll call me if you need anything, won't you? I could take a look at your... friend."_

"I appreciate it. Might have to take you up on the offer, I've never seen him not get himself discharged against advice." And that was a lot of drugs and pain to handle without liberal use of duct tape. "I'll let you get back to sleep."

_"Oh, as if I can now that I'm worrying what you've gotten yourself into."_ Sabrina clucked her tongue and he heard the shift of cloth, probably her turning over in bed. _"I'll tell the girls you said hello, then."_

"Yep, crazy uncle Basty says hello, promises to bring candy and not guns next time I'm up. G'night." He hung up then, because it was easier, and exhaled hard. Fuck, that'd almost been amiable. She might end up shocked as hell if he did show up with Jim in tow.

God knew what his nieces would think.

He made his way through the hospital once he got there, waving to the usual nurses -- fuck, there were usual nurses, which was a sign that he was actually in hell. He probably looked better and worse than he had when he'd left the previous night, but he felt so much better. Felt as if the world had slotted into place in a terrifying way that shouldn't be real.

Maybe none of it was real. Maybe it was all some sick nightmare that didn't seem real. That wasn't anything close to it. That would be nice in ways that made his chest loosen for just a moment. Just one moment, and then it tightened up again at the sight of all the wires and tubes. Fuck.

Jim all kitted up like that hurt like a fresh hell every time, knotted up in his chest. Still, what'd his sister said? If he was still alive, it was probably very good, and Jim was a fighter in the most perverse sense of the definition. He set down the bags and settled into the chair beside the bed to wait and fuck around with Jim's texts.

Nurses came and nurses went. He kept quiet, and they offered nothing, the time stretching long and then shortening again. A doctor was expected, someone said, and they gave him sympathetic doe eyes that made him want to hit something.

Again.

Even the male nurse. Roy or Rory or Rabbit or who the fuck knew. He looked like a damn rabbit, so that was what Bastian settled on as he set Jim's phone down and his on top of it and just closed his eyes for a moment because fuck. There were so many balls to keep in the air, and some of them could've been settled with a nice solid shouting. But he was mostly afraid of what he'd say if he had to open his mouth to one of the work sorts.

"Rmmmm."

What? "Hey. Hey, are you finally waking up?" It was, actually, a stupid fucking question. But he had a hope that Jim might hear it and be pissed off enough to snap. Prove all of his brains were still in place.

Prove pretty much anything.

He was probably wild-eyed, sick a little with fear and euphoria and so afraid that he was glad that he couldn't see himself. Jim gave another garbled sound, his mouth open, the noise in his throat. Bastian realized his hands were shaking.

Sparse black lashes blinked vaguely, the look in Jim's eyes unfocused, unseeing. It took a moment for him to realize that one hand was waving vaguely as if it might do some good.

Like an idiot, he grabbed at that hand, easing it down to the bed, trying to get Jim to relax a little because painkillers and probably the tube in his mouth were fucking him up. There was nothing like having a good flail in medical gear to make a shit day worse. "Hey. It's all right. You're in hospital." He'd have to see the doctor about the tube once he was sure that given three seconds alone in the room, Jim wasn't going to rip it out.

Gurgling was not a positive sign. Gurgling made Bastian want to hit things, to break something, to go and scare up Watson for a good scuffle again. It might make him feel better again, although he had to admit that he didn't think anything could. "Nnnnn." Yes, yes, and Bastian reached out to press the button, releasing whatever pain killing cocktail was running into Jim's veins. It took a minute, and Bastian counted every fucking second of it by thousands, struggling to give it a little time before he grabbed a doctor by the coat collar and hauled him in there.

But Jim relaxed, finally, even if he didn't let go of Jim's hand yet. This was not on his list of good things. A challenge, Jim had said. Something new, and he had been elated at the idea of someone, something, like himself. It wouldn't go too far, he had sworn. Just until he beat Sherlock Holmes, a promise. Bastian had never known him to break a promise before now. Not to him. To anyone, everyone else... but never before to him.

There was a first time for everything, he supposed. He waited until he could pull his hand back and not get a reaction, then bolted for the door to find a nurse, doctor, someone. They needed to know he was awake and possibly get that fucking tube out of his throat so Bastian could see how bad it was.

He had to hear Jim for himself. He had to know. It would be his luck to find the silly ginger one. She was young and it flustered her when he made the demand. He damned near yelled at her before one of the older nurses went into motions, making calls and getting things done.

Experience over youth was a good choice every time in his opinion.

"Thank you." He sounded frustrated, but he directed the honestly meant words to the older nurse who waved at him with one ear on her phone, likely already on the phone with the doctor. There was nothing to do but give the ginger thing a look and storm back to Jim's room, ratcheted up with anxiety and fear and anticipation because if Jim started to talk and it was all fucked up for anything other than mechanical reasons or drugs, both of which he could distinguish from brain damage, he'd seen enough of that in his boys during the war, men who'd gotten their bell rung right off or shrapnel in the brain or a shockwave that just dropped them cold. If, he was going to burn the building down. After he put Jim out of his misery.

Maybe it would put him out of his own misery as well.

The phones were going off on his pocket, his with its simple beep, both of Jim's with ridiculous symphonic sound. Every now and then, the BeeGees played and made him want to hit something.

He finally shut them off, because just for a moment, he couldn't pretend to be himself and Jim and whatever personas Jim had going in the air, not while he sat there and waited at Jim's bedside. Because Jim was quiet -- not gurgling, nothing, just quiet.

It took forever for the doctor to come. He sat there, hands clasped between his knees, head down. He wasn't a greatly religious man, but praying never hurt anything and it might help. Jim would laugh about it, but Bastian didn't give a damn. He could laugh all he liked so long as he was himself as he did it.

"Mr... Moran?" He looked up, nodding at the doctor.

"He woke up for a second, and seemed to be in pain. I couldn't make sense of him around the tube. Is there any chance you can take it out?" He was going to be calm, talk slowly, not let any additional information come out. That he was scared was something the doc didn't need to know.

The doctor nodded. "We can try that when next he's awake. You're his partner, yes?" In so many ways. He just nodded, listening as the physician continued. "Considering what he has tried to do, he's been quite lucky. The orbital fractures weren't so bad that he'll be in danger of losing his eyes. The damage to his nasal cavity and the lower parts of his face were the most serious problems. We performed quite a bit of reconstructive surgery. More might be required later, but for now I can assure you that Mr. Brook is, in fact, a very lucky man."

Losing his _eyes_? Hadn't even crossed Bastian's damn mind, but suddenly it was all he could imagine. Except for swelling -- which he completely expected -- Jim's face looked fine, so all of the reconstruction had to be on the inside. "Oh, god." He exhaled, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and ran both hands over his face. "Oh, god. Right. When can I take him home?"

"I'm afraid that I can't offer you any sort of estimate at this time. Mr. Brook is quite lucky to be alive." The doctor gave him what was likely his best attempt at sympathy. "Don't lose hope. I think that he'll live through this."

"He has to." He stood up, restless, angry all over again, miserable and elated. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. "I, could we take the tube out now, so he doesn't have to wake up freaking out and choking around it again?"

There seemed to be some waffling -- Bastian could read faces even if he wasn't as smart as Jim -- but it all seemed to come down to a willingness to do as he asked.

The young nurse came in to assist, flirting outrageously with the doctor all the while. It irritated him more than anything else, making him want to break things. He stayed in the room, standing back and out of the way, but watching carefully while they extracted it, watching Jim's face. Watched his eyes flicker slowly, watched him frown unevenly and pull a face that, for a moment, had no place on Richard Brook's face at all, before he decided to assess the room prior to reacting. Better to swan in and save him the trouble. "Richard," you dick, you fucking selfish dick, you god-damned asshole, "it's okay. You're in hospital."

He mumbled or perhaps mushed his way through some almost protest. Even half-conscious, he seemed to be irritated by his inability to speak. That didn't last long, though, dark eyes closing, brows beetling together in pain, enough so that Bastian reached out and pressed the button on the pump.

"Poor thing," the completely vacant headed nurse declared.

Not brain dead. Not fucked up in any way that wasn't acceptable. Bastian sat down heavily, and fished the cell phones out of his pocket to set them on the table beside the bed. He could pick back up with faking his way through shit as long as Jim wasn't a mush head, and that flash of sliver sharp irritation was all he needed. "He'll be all right." And when he woke up, properly woke up, in a day or two, Bastian would be there still.

* * *

He'd taken to doing sit-ups and pushups in Jim's room to fend off boredom, in between text messages. He was back on top of that particular pile of shit, and had convinced most of the people who wanted to speak to Jim that he wasn't in a mood to talk, which wasn't as weird as it might've sounded to normal people. It usually implied he was indisposed, and he'd handled it through Jim's somewhat unexpected detainment by Sherlock's brother.

The nurses still made sympathetic faces, and started asking things like how long they'd been together, which made him want to hang up a phone because no one asked him those things in real life. Except that they were. So he played his part and mumbled through 'about three years', and avoided them when he could. In the downstairs cafeteria for visitors, he started to recognize other people who were probably in similar situations -- someone stuck in the hospital for far too long, and it'd only been five days.

Sometimes Jim was awake and sometimes he wasn't. For the most part, he was sleeping. Most likely that was to avoid his inability to express himself properly. It was clear that he was incredibly pissed off, but he couldn't blame Bastian for this one. This one he was altogether responsible for doing to himself. Still, Bastian did expect some kind of eventual revenge to be taken out on him, but it wasn't anything he was particularly concerned about. That Jim was pissed off and he could see it in the pull of his mouth and the dug-out angles of his eyebrows was enough, feigning sleep when he wasn't actually asleep. He left Jim's cell phone in reaching distance in case he decided he wanted to start texting things or whatever, but it was all in Jim's impatient fingers to make the next move. "You know, the last time I tried to pretend I was asleep, you put a tealight on my forehead." Because nothing could get a man to stop feigning sleep like the threat of hot wax in his eyes and his hair on fire. Silence. It wasn't a stretched silence; he recognized those, just as he recognized this. There was amusement there, lurking beneath the surface. "So. Should I see if I can balance a tea-light on your forehead?" He was dangerously close to doing it, and finally watched the edge of Jim's mouth move. Caught. "If you at least crack an eye open, I'll start telling you all about Richardson's bitchy-assed problem with customs. Because I know those stories about his ineptitude amuse you."

The peep of one night-dark eye from beneath a lid was slow, but Jim finally opened the other as well, giving a nod so imperious the Queen Mum would have been put to shame. "Esh."

God, that was good. Mumbled, hardly half a word at all, but he knew he had to look manic as he relaxed, something unknotting in his chest. "The shipment in question was Type 63 assaults. Should've been easy to get in, everything was going fine until the sniffer dogs came in. Shipment came from China, labeled as appropriate bric-a-brac, good false bottoms. This was a quality job, except. He buffered one package of Hong Kong electronics and shit with rice. Can't import rice. Dogs picked up on it, they started to inspect, whole shipment's been seized. Richardson starts tap-dancing. _'It wasn't me, it was a supplier, I wiped all records, there's no trace'_ , ta-ta-ta."

The vague chortle that got him made his sinuses sting just a bit. Jim's fingers twitched, hand visibly shifting to reach for his phone.

He saved him the trouble, passing it over to him so he didn't have to move much at all. "He's still in our holding. I haven't done anything with him yet." It was waiting, pending, because he hadn't had time to make the sort of show of force that needed to be made because he was staying watch over Jim. And a show of force had to be made. Fuck, maybe he could film it and bring it back to Jim if the nurses weren't being too nosy.

Tripping fingers moved over the screen of Jim's phone, and it wasn't surprising when his phone chimed. _Video._ It was a demand.

He looked up at Jim grinning as he got to his feet. "Right. I'll be back sometime after dinner, then. Do you want me to bring you something? Milkshake?" Straws were probably banned, but Jim's fingers worked and he could manage a spoon. "Pint of Richardson's blood?"

It was so good, the fact that he didn't seem to have blown out his brains along with his sinuses. The cruelty of him, the twisted desire to control the world and burn the stupidity out of it, made Bastian hard. _Blood. And ice cream._ Of course he wanted it all.

"No problem." He slid Jim the other cell phone, made sure he could reach the couple of books he'd brought along, maths theorems and a pen he palmed over with them. Jim had to know what he was doing, but it was as close to a roomful of flowers as he was going to get. Bastian didn't linger, just started towards the door with his phone. The text to the heavies back at the warehouse just said: _Get Richardson handcuffed to a wheelchair. I'm coming._

He'd dialed his sister by the time he was on the first floor, trying to swallow back a rising sense of elation. It wasn't like they were out of the fucking woods, but god. God. Jim's cold bright eyes were dancing and all right even with the drugs. He waited for her to pick up.

_"Honestly? What does midnight emergency rotation mean to you, exactly, Sebastian?"_ Cranky bitch. Probably ran dominant in the bloodstream, but the rest of them repressed it better.

“It means you need to get better hours.” He made a fast walk for the front door, heading for his tidy parked around the corner Sportka. “I’m headed to a meeting, so I’ll -- when you said you could take a look at my friend. We -- were you serious? He’s… conscious, alert, finally, and I figure I can only stall him at the hospital for a couple of days before he gets himself discharged.” Hell, he’d made the mistake of leaving a change of clothes under the bed. If he hadn’t already promised video and other things he would’ve suspected Jim of making an immediate break for it. "I need to get him out of London, but out of the country is probably too ambitious."

The pause on the other end of the line was heavy with something like suspicion. _"One day you'll be revealed as a criminal mastermind and I will need to pretend that I find it greatly shocking, won't I?"_

He snorted into the phone, fishing his keys out of his pocket. "You can't imagine me in a suit, but you're willing to assume I'm a mastermind. Yeah, I'm so fucking smart I got myself drummed right out of the army. Look, when you meet him, you'll understand why I just... wanted to get him away from this fucking city for a few weeks. Months. Years, years'd be great. It's what I mentioned I was tangled up in."

Sabrina sighed heavily. _"Oh, that's fantastically reassuring."_ She paused, though, seeming thoughtful. _"He must be terribly important to you for you to be asking."_

"He is." He wasn't going to say anything else, and she didn't need to hear it. He popped open the door to his car and slid inside. "I've been haunting the hospital waiting for the asshole to open his eyes and prove that he didn't take out any braincells with that stupid fucking stunt, and he's. He's all right." He'd won. Whun, won, that was what he was saying on the roof. Fucker.

_"Father's due to visit any time now. I expect you can hide out in the guest house easily enough, though. Jeremy and I can insist that he stay in the house. It's closer to the girls anyway."_

"Thanks. Thanks." He started the car and slid his seatbelt on quickly before he pulled out, steering one handed. "I'll let you get back to sleep. Sorry about the hours thing."

_"Ha!"_ Being the youngest sucked a bit, honestly. He would always be twelve in her eyes in some ways, even if it was only in this way. _"Honestly, Basty. You're all right, aren't you? Not being chased by the Yard or Interpol or anything?"_

His sister was much too good at extrapolation, and too close for comfort besides.

"I'm fine." He didn't have to reach to sound exasperated with her. "No cops following me, I swear. I just need to get him away from the crazy tabloid people, before I do something stupid and do end up in jail." Anyone else would consider that to be explanation enough. Not his sister.

_"You know I've always been able to tell whether or not you've told me the entire truth, Basty."_

He pulled into traffic, and rested the back of his head against the seat-back, using enough pressure to make him wish he could hit his head without veering around on the roads. Jesus, and the worst part was he was too fucked up to think about what story and what he needed to say and what part of the web he was standing on, because Jim'd gone and made himself too high profile. "What do you want me to say? I'm going to have a meeting with a supplier down at the docks and it's going to involve an electric drill and a jam jar? Is that what you want to hear? And after I'm done with the meeting, I'm going back to the hospital to bring my stupid idiotic flatmate ice cream and a spoon, because he shot himself after Sherlock Holmes just finished off his occasionally tenuous grasp on reality. Suppose I'll have to leave the body parts in the trunk. It's crazy, but you seem convinced I'm some member of the criminal element."

_"Oh fuck's sake, Sebastian. Pardon the running joke. You deserve it for forgetting and calling me before I've done much more than close my eyes."_

"Jesus." Deep breath. She had no fucking clue, and he'd given her a lot to work with if she felt like getting on. He took a deep breath, and then turned down a road that'd take him to the warehouse where they were holding Richardson. "I think the last week sort of ate my sense of humor. I'll come around in two or three days, and thanks for the guest house."

_"I'll have Angelina prepare for it. And I'll do my best to keep Father out of your hair. His general opinions on your proclivities are annoying enough without the children hearing them."_

He snorted, because oh yes. His _proclivities_. He wasn't sure whether that was the gambling, the drinking, the guns, the fighting, his stubbornness, going into the military, getting kicked out of the military, or the fact that he wasn't willing to be a respectable closet case bisexual and just fucking stick with women. Mostly, he suspected his father was everything he was, and was just damned jealous that he didn't have the balls to be as fucked up as he wanted to be.

"Thanks. We'll be on best behavior." He was even going to let her get the last word in before he hung up. Just to be nice.

_"Mmm, yes. Best being relative, of course. The girls will be ecstatic. Just let me know when you're coming."_ She paused. _"I'll need to fetch some supplies if you want me to keep an eye on your Richard."_ And god, she was breathtakingly fast. He hadn’t named Jim, hadn’t given her specifics, and she’d jumped that far, had probably pawed through newspapers to get the bits of information she needed. Had probably done more reading on it than he had because he couldn’t see Sherlock’s mug without wanting to set a paper on fire.

And she’d said his Richard. Not his flatmate. His _Richard_. He supposed he was his Dickheaded Jim, as much as a human ball of flame could be anyone's. "Christ. Please... please don't say that around him, or I'll never live it down." He'd end up with Jim's name carved onto his thigh with a penknife or something for it. "Oh, bugger. Right. Right. I'll call you. G'night." He hung up fast, and the timing was excellent. He could see the warehouse from where he was.

He dialed his heavy on the scene. "It's Moran. I need an electric drill, and an empty jam jar. The boss wants something bloody out of this for his trouble."

All in all, his day was coming up roses.

* * *

Packing for a trip of unknown duration for Jim was tricky. He had to pack all of the things Jim might want -- his best traveling computer, gear, suits, books, blank notebooks, pens, clothes that were slightly more normal at least until he looked at the freakishly expensive tag and found out a t-shirt cost £120, couple of passports and IDs -- and everything he needed in terms of guns and ammunition. And things for work. He ended up packing the trunk completely, and having to put laptop bags and his rifle case on the backseat. Jim needed packing done as if he were a girl.

It was horrible, but not quite as bad as pouring Jim into the passenger seat, giving him a full dose of the prescriptions the hospital had happily doled out, and buckling him in unconscious. He popped the seat back, and maybe Jim'd get some sleep. He'd been up all hours the night before, pinging around on his laptop and frustrated with the quality of speech he didn't have. Short texts had turned into lengthy emailed diatribes.

Still, the math was pretty fascinating.

Sometimes he thought about Watson, wondered if the man was like him in his preparations, in taking care of his own idiotic genius before the fellow had offed himself by taking a flying leap. It seemed likely, and at least it gave him something to consider on the trip to Wiltshire aside from fretting about Jim. It was better to save the fretting about Jim for when the man was conscious to fret about. As it was, he was driving a relatively nice Audi a little too fast on back roads. He'd already almost hit a sheep, which was an oddly satisfying feeling to have on old familiar roads. He'd park at the guest house, offload the bags and Jim, and hopefully have it all tidied away before his sister even noticed he was there if there were a god who smiled on crazed folks. With his sort of luck, he'd end up with her, Jeremy, and all three of the girls watching and offering advice. Not to mention the utterly horrific notion that his father would most likely be right behind the lot of them.

Maybe it was better to worry about Jim after all.

He started to slow as he turned onto the side road to the house, not wanting the engine to give his presence away any more than, well, they were already expecting him. It'd been a nice drive, and if it all went to shit he still had driving as an option, in a much better ride than his beater Sportka. He'd just cope with things as they came, focus on Jim.

Hope like hell the wretched bastard could manage to seem at least semi-normal, or something approaching it in any case.

The road turned into the softer crunch of shells and gravel and Bastian slowed further, hoping for a better chance of going unnoticed.

Of course, he already knew it wasn't going to happen. He'd hardly pulled into the first guest house parking space when he saw his sister coming out of the main house, looking, well. Alert and perky for seventeen hundred hours. He turned off the car and looked left, reaching over to wipe a little bloody drool off of the side of Jim's mouth with his thumb. "Hey. We're here."

It took moment for Jim to rouse himself from his stupor and begin to shift. It was just long enough for Brina to stop beside the car, waving a hand. Jesus. He turned off the engine and reached over to pop Jim's seat-belt button in case he felt inspired to do something bizarre like chew through it. He might've taken a deep breath before he popped the door open and unfolded himself from the front seat. "We made it."

"Well of course you did." His sister was still very much his sister –- shorter than him, incredibly busty, her dark hair ridiculously short. She looked tired, but she had clearly been expecting them to arrive so had stayed awake. "The girls have been in utter spasms of glee that you're coming. It does take so little."

"Now to live up to their expectations." He rolled his eyes a little, and she hugged him briefly, enough for him to grunt and halfway return the gesture. "Yeah, it's good to see you, too."

The kiss to his cheek was unavoidable. "And you're going to come around more often," she prompted before looking in the car.

Jim was still mostly out, but he mumbled something like a greeting and gave a vague wave of his hand.

"Work keeps me busy. And unpredictable." He waved back at Jim. "So, I'll get him in the house, and then the bags. Packs like a bloody girl."

She snorted, and he could practically hear the next comment even before she made it. "Except that you packed for him."

Mumbling from the car. "Years of it," he shrugged. "My god, if I packed wrong, I'd regret it, and yes, I hear you in there. Right." Tapped his fingers on the door, and pulled away from his sister and her delighted smirking to open Jim's door to help him out. He was pawing at the door lock with drugged fingers, scowling up at Bastian with a demanding sort of set to his eyebrows.

"Well," Brina offered. "It's clear who wears the pants."

He snorted, pulling the door open and getting smacked on the hip for his trouble with a wild swing. "Lovely, and this is the stuff they give out at the hospital, huh? C'mon." Not that _c'mon_ meant Jim did much moving, because it was mostly him leaning in, sliding an arm behind Jim's back to help him to his feet. He wasn't steady, but Bastian wasn't going to let him fall. He just preferred not to have to fireman carry him into the guesthouse. "Not even going to ask what makes you say that."

His sister leaned in, helping him to shift Jim out of the car despite the melodramatic flail. "Yes, well. I can't imagine." The dry tone of voice made his teeth clench. "You've packed. Never mind the demanding attitude."

"That's it, I'm going to start calling Jeremy your little man bitch when the girls aren't around," Bastian offered, an arm carefully around Jim's waist. He was already halfway to walking him over to the house, fully intent on dumping him on the first sofa he came across. "Richard, this is my sister Sabrina, Sabrina, if we're lucky he's too high to remember any of this."

She laughed, reaching out and opening the guest house door. "Oh, well. I'm so glad you think I can be that much of a charmer. And of course Jeremy is my little man bitch, Basty. I had to get one when you ran off to the Army. Necessity, you understand."

The mumbled chortle from Jim was oddly comforting. Bastian made sure he didn't trip on the step, and didn't bother to take the time to be impressed with the excessive tidiness of the guest house. His family had far too much money, well invested, well heeled in the old fashion, and everything they did showed it. Which was why his sister was probably pleased just to see him in a suit, even if it was comfortable and one elbow was starting to wear from where he braced himself on window frames. "I'm going to be outnumbered when he gets to the point he can ween off the drugs, aren't I?"

"Oh, I expect so. Richard?" She spoke a bit more loudly. "If you don't mind, I'll take a look at your mouth while Bastian here brings in all of the things out of the car. Since he made the effort to pack them, anyway."

It was all eyebrows and no words yet, which left Bastian to grimace as he propped Jim up on a white leather sofa -- that was just asking to be all fucked up in twenty-four hours -- carefully. Careful. "He's very particular about how he sounds. It's been just texts." Which was fine by him. He stepped back, gauging the likelihood that Jim was going to bite her if he left the living-room.

Fuck it, now or never. No sense in lingering when there were guns to be moved, preferably before his sister saw how many of them there were.

"I expect we'll get along just fine without you for a few moments, Basty." His nickname seemed to be a source of great amusement. The bastard.

He headed back to the car, and started to unpack, two suitcases at a time, diligent, leaving them in the one bedroom at the back. It was a nice one story, and there wasn't enough room for Jim to get into any real trouble. Then again, close quarters and slow healing could conspire to be his death. It was fifty-fifty, and mostly, he was betting on the mania winning.

It would be stupid to wager against a sure thing.

There was no yelling, so Bastian decided that Jim hadn't bitten his sister. That was probably for the best considering she was their option for having him taken care of without the press getting involved, at least not any more than they already were. Kitty Reilly's photos and sad little story had run four days ago and he had considered stabbing the first four damnable asses that had sought out Jim's hospital room.

Still, he approached the living room a bit tentatively after he'd slid his gun case under the bed. Unseen, which was excellent. "Anything I can do to be useful?"

Jim was draped across his sister's lap, and he wouldn't be surprised if he had tried to feel her up. It was just the sort of thing he might do. "Hm, no. They seem to have done quite good work considering the records you sent for me to review."

"Good!" Great, excellent. He eased into the room, trying to feign some sort of comfortable posture because it was two parts of his life he'd never expected to have cross over. Jim's eyes were smiling, smirking, at him. "Great." He sat down in the chair across from the sofa, but didn't relax. Couldn't.

"And if _Richard_..." Why did that sound like suspicion somehow? "...will behave and do as I say then it should all work out just fine."

Jim's mouth twitched and he seemed to melt into Brina's lap just to piss off Bastian. "Nnnnm." He was still completely high, but he was much more himself than not. The relief of that still made his chest loosen, made him feel as though things were going to be all right somehow.

Considering the things that could very well be lurking in the world just waiting to bite them in the ass, it was ridiculous to relax, but that was life. Unpredictable, unreasonable, and very likely infectious. If something bit them in the ass, they'd just have to bite right back, and if his sister was suspicious, he'd hear about it. He wasn't going to go putting himself through hoops ahead of time. As it was, just watching Jim finally close his eyes again was something of a relief, even if he was sprawled. Best to get the laptop bag and a couple of books, then, and just set it up on the coffee table in case Jim woke back up and something struck his fancy. No wonder his sister was suspicious, huh? "I think he can manage that."

There was a certain spark in Brina's eye, one that said so much more than Bastian wanted to consider. "Why is it that I get the impression that he normally doesn't?"

The faint twitch of Jim's shoulders made Bastian shift to his feet from the chair to go fetch that pack. Jim had already slept more in a week than he usually did in a month, manic fuck that he was. "Can't say that you're wrong." Compound fractures just jutting out like it was nothing, screaming, howling hysterics, stabbings, fistfights, the occasional poisoning, drugs, the whole damn range. He'd seen it all, and nothing had shocked him until Jim had put a fucking gun in his mouth and done that. "He's also just faking sleep. Do you want books or the laptop?" Jim had a cell phone shoved somewhere in his skinny pants, and Bastian had every intention of just abandoning him on the sofa for an hour or two so he could stretch his legs a little better and get some coffee or something. Say hello to the girls, secure the building.

His sister laughed at the cranky expression that crossed Jim's face, the way he shot a pout across the coffee table in Bastian's direction clearly amusing for her. "No wonder you're always so busy, Basty. Bit henpecked, are we?" She patted Jim's shoulder and he cuddled into her lap with clear smug satisfaction.

Bastian headed for the door, uttering, "Wouldn't have it any other way." And Jim was having fun through his haze, so who was he to break it? He shifted through the bags in the bedroom in quick order, stacking some incomprehensible text, a notepad, pen, and the laptop on top of each other to bring them back to the living room.

The annoying thing of it was when his cell phone started to ring before he finished putting stuff down on the coffee table. The fact that it was ringing a small sharp tone instead of the usual dull ring meant it was someone calling from one of their partner organizations. That was always dicey. "Excuse me, need to take this outside." Didn't linger to watch Jim's expression, or to see his sister pull faces, just kept walking while he answered and hit the front door. "What can I do for you?"

_"And how is your darling friend, Sebastian?"_ Irene Adler sounded as though she were made of glass. Considering her fondness for Holmes, he supposed it was unsurprising. The lack of professional integrity in that was appalling and familiar. _"Much better, I should hope."_

"Excellent." He was frowning into the phone, fishing his cigarettes out of his suit jacket with one hand and trying to knock one free at the same time he looked for his lighter. "What's this about, Adler? He hasn't got a new job for anyone right now, and your voice doesn't sound like you want to play any games."

_"I would say to call it some sort of professional courtesy, however...."_ Her voice trailed into silence. _"Our current project seems to have gone a bit off. I am afraid that the time and place failed to coincide. Call it the unpredictability of a minister's life."_

"Jesus." He blinked once, and then closed his eyes, flicking open his lighter. Right, right, because he was an obsessive fuck and had focused in with laser intensity on the boss and not the work. "Are you re-engaging with the target?" He didn't think she'd say no, but it would change the timeline dramatically. Not that he cared about timelines, but there was a good bit of money sitting on it from a group of interested Russians.

_"Colonel Moran. I am many things, the least of which is grateful for your continued protection."_ After all, Holmes might have saved her head; he might have been completely brilliant, even. Brilliance did not equal continued protection, and Adler definitely needed that. _"We have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. Same place, same time. Hopefully, nothing will take place to change that."_

He did a quick play in his head, nodding to himself as he sat down on the front step, finally lighting his cigarette. "You say that as if you're expecting trouble. Are you?" It was the little details that he needed to know because he didn't sense them like Jim did. There was no plucking things out of thin air with nothing more than a handful of tiny possibilities no one else would see or intuit.

The silence on the other end of the phone seemed dry, a bit annoyed. _"I always expect trouble, Colonel. There is a reason that I am still alive after all this time... despite my lapse in judgment."_

He kept his eyes closed, inhaling slowly, exhaling just as slowly, switching ears. Lapse in judgment, also called getting all excited and wound up about Sherlock fucking Holmes. "All was forgiven some time ago. Mostly because he thought it was fucking hysterical. Just don't get sentimental about the minister. And if you have some concrete threat you suspect, tell me. I'm out of town right now, but can get back there fast."

After all, it wasn't as if pretty, elite vixens were just falling out of the sky to work for Jim. Jim's general utterly psychotic behavior tended to make females a little less prevalent in their particular cadre of criminal associates. _"Yes. I doubt that there will be any further difficulties."_

"All right." He tilted his head slightly, hearing something coming towards the door. His sister was going to trip over him shortly. "Good. Anything else I can do for you, Mrs. Adler?" She didn't need to be assured that as soon as she sent the information along, she was going to get paid. That was understood. Jim didn't care about money enough to keep his employees from getting it in an excessively timely manner.

Jim didn't care about many things except the delight of information spilling through his fingers, and making enough money to support his clothing habit. The only person Bastian could ever recall meeting who had as much of a fetish about his clothing had been a bald guy with swivel hips he had laid in a club his last night before heading to Sandhurst.

_"No, Colonel. I think everything is well in hand."_

"Good. I look forward to receiving the information. G'night, Mrs. Adler." He hung up, because if there was more she'd wanted to say, that was too damn bad.

The door hadn't opened yet, which implied that his sister had her ear pressed against it on the inside, to better eavesdrop. "I know you're standing there."

The sound of the handle turning wasn't surprising. Not in the least, because Sabrina had always been nosy as fuck. She had spied on him half of his life, so he was accustomed to it by now. "Business, I take it."

He shifted over on the step so she could step out without needing to kick at him. His back was bothering him again, anyway, and he didn't need to tweak it. "Business," he agreed. "Is he passed out again?"

"Cold," she agreed. "Smug bastard, too. And his eyes follow you everywhere. Are you quite sure your Richard understands the difference between love and possession?"

"Not at all." He inhaled slowly, flicking through his texts. The first one was Jim, and completely pornographic, so he turned off his screen and shifted to pocket it. Some things a man didn't need his sister seeing, particularly when it started with lighter fluid. "Doesn't matter to me if there is a difference. I've been with him three years and a bit now."

Brina settled in beside him, nudging him slightly so that he would scoot over a bit. "And how is that working for you, love?"

He exhaled, looking at the burning bright end of his cigarette. She sounded like she wanted the truth, and he didn't think, hah, that she could handle the truth. "Unbelievably well, actually. You'd be surprised."

"Mmmm." That was enough to make him suspicious of her suspicion. "Well. He's remarkably well-groomed, at least. Clearly quite a bit off his rocker. Why else would he go through to the point of being on trial and in danger of being locked away forever all for a bit of coin? How much did that net him, Basty? Surely not enough for the risk." Reaching over, she snagged his cigarette and put it to her mouth, drawing in a deep lungful. Just like a physician. Tell everyone else that things were practically acid and all of them kept right at it as if being a doctor somehow made them immortal.

"You mightn't have noticed, but I was smoking that," he muttered, fishing another one out. "We do all right. And yeah, he's completely insane. Probably psychotic. Manic. Manic little fuck." He inhaled on the new one while flicking his lighter on to get it going. "We have a lot of fun. The quiet in jail probably didn't help all of this."

His sister gave another of those hums, not agreement, not disagreement. "It's your life, Basty. It is. I know better than to try and encourage you or discourage you from any given thing, it never ends well for either of us because you're a stubborn bastard." As if she hadn't always been just as bad. "Still. There are medications for that sort of thing."

He snorted, exhaling slowly through his nose. "I like him like this. The time he met me at his door with a taser, I could pass on." The doormat still smelled like piss, but it did deter anyone who thought about robbing the place.

"Christ Almighty, Sebastian. I never would have thought that you were a masochist. Perhaps I should stop asking questions. I prefer not to be scarred for life."

He smirked wildly, sitting a little more upright. Tiny, brief window for revenge, and he was going to capitalize on it. "Wait, wait, give me a minute. We got kicked out of a hotel in Krakow after he got into a fistfight with someone who tried to carry his suitcase. He won, too."

The groan Brina gave sounded as if she might be trying to hide laughter. "At least you had your clothes on, I suppose. Why the fuss about the suitcase?"

He was trying not to snort, but she was making it hard. "Honestly? It's his. Didn't need a reason. It was funny as hell."

She laughed, and the whole world was in the right place. It was nice. "If I didn't know that this ends with you and me yelling at one another like idiots about something that means nothing at all, I would ask why you don't come round more often."

"We travel a lot. Also, I've realized I actually enjoy the screaming matches. It's nothing personal." He shifted, leaning his elbows on his knees. "So, what time do you go to work, and can I make myself useful and cook dinner or something?"

A wave of her hand seemed as if it was meant to say everything as she finished off his cigarette before stubbing it out in the ground beside the step. "I took a few days. It isn't every day that you come home, Basty. Never mind the patient in there."

"I'll keep Jim to himself as much as possible. He's an asshole when he's on the mend." Which on the sliding scale had to imply that things were only going to get worse. "Still, he's good with kids. Bizarrely. Oh, I did bring things for the girls." He'd just need to forge back into the house to get them.

Her fist slamming into his upper arm hurt like hell. "You are such a bastard. And a complete idiot. _Richard_ , Sebastian. _Richard_."

"Fuck. _Fuck_!" He shook his arm out, staring back at her as his heart raced up for a second and then slowed back down. "Do you know how damn hard this is?"

"No." Her voice was ground glass. "No, I don't, because I try not to get involved with crazy criminal masterminds. That or you need drugs as well because you seem to believe that he's the former of the two, not the latter; therefore you are either a lunatic, which I doubt, or Sherlock Holmes was, in fact, exactly who he made himself out to be. Knowing his dick of a brother, I was fairly certain of that even before now."

He clenched his teeth, shifting over slightly to look at her, and he couldn't find the words he needed in that moment. "I just... It... fuck. Fuck. If he was right, what does it matter?"

"Well, let me think." The way her voice sharpened, consonants bitten out sharply, made his jaw clench. It was too much like fights from their younger years. No one liked to revisit those. "It means that I am not wrong about your likely career choices. It means that your _Jim_ was probably involved in that leap Holmes took to his death. I find myself uncertain where the shooting himself in the mouth idiocy comes from, but I feel sure you could explain it."

He gritted his teeth, and didn't rise to it, inhaling another breath of smoke. "Not really. He got all excited and just." Bastian exhaled, because. It took a lot of effort not to re-see the visuals all over again. "Manic little fuck. I'm his chief of staff. All right? That's what I do. I do what he tells me. And I think if he were actually dead I'd go right off my fucking rocker."

"Fucking...." Sabrina put her elbows on her knees, her face into her hands. "Fuck. Sebastian. What happened to you?"

"Jesus. It's not bad." He slid an arm over her shoulders, mouth tight. He didn't know what'd happened to him. He'd always been... him. Quieter about it, maybe, more retiring and willing to have a bit of shame. "I just... I missed the war."

When she looked up at him, the stress was so blatantly written across her face that he felt guilty. "What happened to you there that you need this? Why, Basty? I know it isn't money." It wouldn't be, despite his father's opinions. His great-aunt Vivian had left him a ridiculous amount of money, not to mention two properties that cost enough that he was grateful both that it was a ridiculous amount of money and that Jim was amazing at investments.

Well, and torture.

He balanced his cigarette in his mouth, and rubbed at his jaw. "It makes me feel alive. There's something just fucked up about me, and doing what we do just makes everything feel great." And he didn't need to tell her what he did, that he was still the best sniper in the continent, possibly the world. Certainly the best freelancer. "And Jim's, he's brilliant when he's not half-cocked. He just doesn't do well when he's bored."

"Brilliant." The statement was flat, angry. "He's _brilliant_."

"I know. It doesn't change the fact that's he's completely batshit." Maybe he was, too. He probably was, but everything felt so normal, so easy. He'd fallen in with Jim with nary a misstep, like everything was natural. No hitting his face, but they got into everything else with each other, and Jim liked it when he fought back, liked to see him come home high from a kill shot. There was no, _oh, you shouldn't enjoy that_ , no list of things he needed to do to make people other than him happy. That was the thing that was so great about it. No matter what he did, what they did, there was nothing like judgment. He didn't see what was wrong with that.

"Clearly. I..." Sabrina stood up, shaking off his touch. "I cannot ask the questions that need asking. I do not need to know, not at all. You've lost your bloody mind, Sebastian. I should have realized sooner and gotten you some sort of help, clearly."

"I'm completely rational, Sabrina!" But he stayed seated on the step because he knew when to send the threat signals now and when not to. Making a plea about his sanity wasn't a time to stand up jarringly at someone who was shorter than him. "I mean it. Absolutely, stark raving sane. You think the army wouldn't have had me committed if they could have gotten away with it? Ask whatever you want."

Reaching up, his sister ran her hand through her hair, looking up as if she couldn't look at him at all. Maybe she couldn't. "I don't need to ask anything," she said, turning and walking away a few steps before stopping. "I... am going to forget this conversation altogether. We did not have it, and I am not going to consider anything regarding it." Which was ridiculous, because it wasn't as though she could, in fact, do that. He knew her much too well for that.

"We both know it's not going to work." He stood up finally, slowly. They were both a little old to be having that sort of fight. "Look, let me just come in and help with dinner and we'll... pretend at least." It wasn't time to make any jokes about rat poison, so he bit at his bottom lip instead.

Perhaps it should have surprised him when she turned around and slapped the shit out of him. Maybe. It didn't, though, and that bit definitely sucked. Hard. A lot. "I cannot believe you. All right. I can accept that you will never be what Father wants. I don't disagree with that, not in the least, because he's frankly a complete bastard about it. I could accept that you are entirely unlikely ever to tell me exactly what you do, and I expect that is for the best. What I cannot accept is that you have brought this complete psychopath to my home, with my bloody _daughters_!" She hissed it, and she was breathing rapidly, heaving breaths. "Sebastian!"

"I swear to god, he won't hurt them or you or Jeremy. I swear, Sabrina." The slap stung, loitered, huh, drew blood from his nose in a way that made him sniff it back, taste running down his throat. "He's a perfect gentlemen when it suits him and believe me, it suits him to be a perfect gentleman right now." Though the guest house had been a good idea.

"Three daughters. I have three daughters, and you've dragged a psychopath into my home." She was shaking. "I. Sebastian. I... you stay here. I need to go to the house and try desperately not to think about any of this."

She was walking away, fast, by the time he called out, "He doesn't even like women!" as if that was at all a useful or appropriate rejoinder. "He's debilitated! He.... Fuck." Fuck. Right. He was going back into the house and calm down, because she needed her space.

He put the cigarette out carefully on the drive, and trudged back into the guest house. Might as well go back inside and check on Jim, make sure he was comfortable. Maybe it would make him feel less angry and stressed and generally frustrated. Or worse. Whatever it ended up being.

It was just his luck that Jim was unconscious for real that time.

* * *

Sabrina still wasn't talking to him, but she'd stopped yelling accusations at him when she woke up to find him in the house -- honestly, as if he didn't have lock picks -- making French toast for the girls because he was, and would forever be, the cool uncle who brought them puzzles and Rock and little trinkets from faraway places where he'd shot people.

It was something like a peace treaty, even if Jeremy was horribly confused by it all. And that was fine, because she hadn't married the man for his brains, so there wasn't any need to get him involved in it all.

Jim was doing a great deal better. Less mush, more clear syllables. He was a pissy bitch, and sex was still off of the table, which made Bastian pissy the longer it went on. It wasn't that it was a vital necessity, or that he wanted to fuck Jim blind when he was still drugged up to his eyeballs. It was just that he had an urge, twitchy and a little angry, and he didn't know what the hell to do about that. It wasn't like it was something that usually lingered around un-tended to, his urges. Hell, he was behaving well, despite Irene getting him the data to pass on and close the transaction for a day late, three botched jobs that he was going to have to clean up and more than one person who was antsy that Jim was gone to ground again. He'd made dinner and chatted with Sabrina and Jeremy like a normal person, then carried dinner back to the guest house to make sure Jim didn't get any skinnier than he already was. And if he was honest about it, he'd missed just. Having quiet, fucked up time with Jim.

His phone started going off five feet from the guest house door, little text sounds that trilled and fell, trilled and fell. It went off every few seconds after that, and Jim was just sitting there, eyeing him with that dirty little smirk that said that he knew it was driving Bastian up the wall and he didn't care.

He was probably just sad he hadn't started doing it earlier.

"Honest to god. If I didn't think you'd choke me out, I'd take that from you." He took a swig of the wine he'd poured -- mostly because alcohol and drugs and semi open wounds were an excellent combination in some planet that he was firmly part of -- and got to his feet to pick up the phone. "And don't spit in my sandwich!"

Jim's laughter sounded just the way it should in one way –- dark and sarcastic and vicious, twitchy. In another, it was strange and nasal and _off_ in a manner that disturbed Bastian every time.

His phone went off again.

_I'll spit in it if I like. I've spit into you._

He started back towards the dinette that Jim had decided was a fine place to prop himself up, and couldn't do more than sit down with his mouth pulled tight. "The circumstances when you do that's usually a lot more interesting to me than this."

_Trill-trill-trill_.

_And the time will come when I spit in you again. Just not tonight._

He took another swig of wine, and then finished off the sandwich mostly to spite himself. It was easy to stretch out a leg, watching Jim watching him, eyes sharp and wickedly amused when Bastian stood up again. He was just all restlessness, and wondered if his sister was right, if he was absolutely fucking nuts and just hadn't had time or circumstances to notice it yet. "Right. I'm going out for a run or something." Maybe he'd find a wayward jogger and choke him for fun.

_Fine. Go running. Kill something small. Bring me back a present._

Demanding bastard.

"Fuck." He clipped his shoulder on the door jamb leaving, and then had to circle back like an idiot to Jim's muffled laughter and another _trill-trill-trill_ to pick up the fucking trilling phone. "Fine, fuck, fine. I'll be back and, fuck." Fuck, he wanted sex, _anything_ , so bad he could taste it, could feel heat creeping over his cheeks. It'd been two weeks, no, longer than that? He needed to flip through his calendar. That was madness.

His run up the stairs didn't help any, but he managed to change into running shoes and shorts before he headed back downstairs. The phone went off every few seconds the entire time, leaving him with his teeth clenched and his jaw aching before he managed to set off out the door.

_Trill-trill-trill_.

Running. It worked off a lot of things some days, but today didn't feel like one of those days. He hadn't killed anyone in days, and he hadn't had sex in weeks, and arguing with his sister or hide-and-seek with his nieces wasn't doing quite enough to assuage that need.

_Trill-trill-trill_.

Stride. Stride. Stride.

_Trill-trill-trill_.

...seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twel....

_Trill-trill-trill_.

The little fucker wasn't going to let him relax. At all. "Fuck!" He was far away enough from the houses, past a natural berm in the land, that he felt all right screaming that to high heavens. At worst, his sister would have to explain there was some strange bird out there and it only sounded like someone yelling filthy expletives, and... and goddammit. He took a deep breath, resting hands on his thighs and crouched over a little before he fished the phone out of his pocket. There was, apparently, no trying to outrun whatever messages Jim was sending him.

Photos.

Fingers on his dick, check. Some kind of lube, clearly. Who the hell knew when he had gone through their things, but he had found what looked like the pineapple flavored stuff.

Jim was such a sadist. Bastian closed his eyes for a moment, then flipped through the next few photos, standing up straighter. Christ, Jim was taunting him. He took a deep breath, and started back towards the guest house because there weren't any texts in there demanding dead voles or some shit. With his luck, Jim'd be asleep by the time he got back, just to fuck with him. Still, he'd needed to get out of the house. Maybe it wasn't sexual frustration that was getting to him, maybe it was just... just the weight of things. Things he wasn't used to having to do, worry about, juggle. The phone trilled a few more times, but he didn't check, just kept a good speed on his way back and let himself back into the house.

What a complete bastard. He was lying there, head back against the arm of the sofa. Bastian knew that he was faking it. The light spilled over his face, and he could see the faintest glisten of one dark eye watching him, mostly hidden behind sparse lashes.

Well. If that was the way he wanted it. He left the hall light on, but didn't bother with any others, just watched Jim and pulled his t-shirt up over his head, toeing off his runners, stripping out of the rest of the kit. He was Sebastian Moran, and he was fucking frustrated and tired and the perfect prey that fought back was just lying there in wait. He might as well even the odds.

One knee balanced on the edge of the sofa and Jim didn't move. He wondered if there was some fetish here that he didn't know about, one that had never been mentioned. The notion that Jim might fuck a corpse given the option was a definite possibility. If it would prove him to be the clear winner in any given argument, he'd bet that he would. Bet money, and it made a sharp grin sneak over his face.

"I know you're in there." He shifted Jim, fingers lingering against his warm sides, touching skin leisurely that he tended not to have time to enjoy. There was always another text or some business fuckery or who the hell knew what. Always something was the point of it, never enough time it seemed. A quick fuck was nothing bad; it was just that sometimes he wanted more than that, and here was Jim, all settled in and waiting.

His eyes opened and he looked up, razor-keen and no small amount mad, no, but clearly ready to enjoy this. Ready to let Bastian do whatever he wanted, which was quite a nice thought, actually, considering what a damned control freak he was.

He exhaled, grinning stupidly as he shifted again, put a knee between Jim's thighs and leaned over him, pressing his nose against Jim's temple. His hands lingered at Jim's ribs, just touching, savouring. He smelled good, warm and shampoo and a little like blood. Most people wouldn't find that such a turn-on, but neither of them had ever been accused of being most people.

Fingers roamed up his arm, caressed over the back of his neck, and then Jim had a fistful of his hair, tugging it sharply and grinning back at him as if he had just done something amazing and wrong and dangerous, and Bastian wished like hell that he could kiss him, tongue and teeth and sharp, biting pressure.

And why not? He leaned in, tasting at Jim's lips, feeling the tugging in his hair and not caring. Just slow, lazy nips to the outside, until Jim sighed and his mouth relaxed just a little. "If you'd died and left me, I'd..." Have done something stupid. Shot himself, or killed all of the people closest in their circle with him, sending them all up in a burst of flame. He wouldn't have been satisfied unless he had taken out an entire city block, and he knew that.

Jim didn't apologize. He never did, because he was never ashamed of anything, nothing at all. His fingers went gentle, though, and Bastian kissed him some more, not going so deep as to feel the wreck of his mouth that they had put back together through some vital miracle that had saved them both. Saved a hell of a lot of other people, too, for that matter.

He didn't care about the other people.

Just the feel of teeth under his tongue, of Jim's mouth pulling into a smirk when he pulled away, sliding a hand down Jim's stomach to wrap around his dick. He was going to fuck him so hard he'd feel it for days. There had to be lube nearby, because Jim was still slick under his fingers, and twitching back to life. He grunted in response, and those hands felt amazing, touching him, smoothing over his shoulders, and then there was a savage pinch to one of his nipples that turned into something of a twist, and Bastian couldn't help yelling. It hurt like a motherfucker, and he wasn't at all surprised when Jim mirrored it on the other side of his chest, hard and tugging.

"Fuck." He caught himself laughing it, head hung down between his shoulders for a moment before he dug his fingers into Jim's side. Jim groaned, and shifted just enough that he could get his other knee in comfortably between Jim's thighs. Once he was settled, it was easier to get Jim's hips up by shoving a knee under his ass and fuck. Fuck, the manic little fuck had to have used a whole tube of lube for the top of his thigh to feel like that.

The way Jim was poking him, prodding him, laughing at him, and he cocked his hips, squirming to get Bastian's hands in him. Greedy, and it was a sick relief, all of it. Greedy crazy motherfucker, completely insane, and pulling at him, dragging at him. He was probably half-high off of whatever shit he had been given, and it was clear that he was enjoying himself at least twice as much as anyone normal would consider reasonable.

"Fuck me." It was mostly breathed, the consonants weirdly swallowed, and it made him even harder just to hear it, never mind the feel of his ass already stretched before Bastian had ever managed to touch him.

He twisted his fingers in Jim, just one last time, enough to make his thigh twitch in reaction before he pulled them out. It was so good to hear his voice, even swallowed and quiet. "Pleasure to." A pure delight to take his dick in hand and lean into Jim, breach into slick and tight and squeezing around him in rhythm before he even managed to seat himself fully.

The laughter wasn't unexpected. Jim laughed at all sorts of crazy shit, sex being no different than anything else. He had one leg firmly braced against the edge of the couch and the other was pulling him in, tight and close and hard. He was already humping up, squirming to tease Bastian into something like a rhythm.

"Christ." He went with it, because why fight something that felt so good? Jim was nearly bent in half, and he didn't give a fuck, limber and relaxed when Bastian thrust hard enough to make his back go tight. Jim's hips under his fingers were almost sharp, hot skin that he clutched at. All the while, Jim was watching him, basilisk stare that took in every motion, every shift, every ridiculous sex-face he made. The feel of Jim's fingers on his neck, thumbs stroking his jaw, wasn't unfamiliar. When he pressed lightly against the violent pump of his pulse, he couldn't keep from moaning and leaning in closer to catch his mouth again.

Jim pressed his artery again, and he thrust hard enough to catch Jim off balance a little, for a second, just a gorgeous second to exhale when he didn't expect it in a little moan into Bastian's mouth. Jim's heel hit the back of his calf, scrabbling for purchase on the sofa for just a moment, and all Bastian could feel was beautiful unblinking eyes and teeth against his tongue while the world went grey.

Funny, how the door opening bit into that.

"Seba... oh dear god!"

Still scared the ever living fuck out of him, because he jerked at the noise, never mind whose voice it was because he'd been distracted long enough to put them both at risk, and there wasn't a goddamned gun on hand. Couldn't look over his shoulder, because Jim's fingers were tight in his neck, and still riding him even if he needed to work out what was going on and get a fucking gun.

"For heaven's sake!"

Jim's laughter was warped, strange, but fully present and amused, the sound of him enough to goad Bastian into fucking into him harder if he weren't so desperate for a gun. The sound of Jim cocking one that had come from who the fuck knew where was enough to let him do that.

"Fuck, out, out, get out!" He was just three, four thrusts from coming and it wasn't as if anything could be made better by stopping and apologizing to his father, who apparently hadn't gotten the message that the guest house wasn't where he was staying.

There was a rattle of sound after that, curses or something, he didn't care, couldn't think, because Jim was _holding a gun_ , leg wrapped around Bastian's hip, and he was rutting up to get him in deeper, and the world was awash with intensity.

He reached for the gun, let go of his hip with one hand long enough to get his fingers around Jim's wrist, but Jim was ahead of him, sliding that hand behind Bastian, warm metal pressed against his back. Fucking hell, that sent an ache down his spine, finally enough, better than the slow grey out to have Jim under him, crunched up beneath him and a gun against his back. It was explosive, and he didn't give a damn who watched or what they saw so long as he was getting off.

Jim was still hard when he managed to open his eyes again, panting in the aftermath of orgasm. He pushed up against Bastian, slow and steady, smirking with pleasure, hints of blood staining the corners of his mouth. Unbelievable, and beautiful enough to make it hard to think, kissing at the mess while he gave up on caring about getting the gun away from Jim. It was easier, better, to reach between them and wrap his fingers around Jim's cock and give it a squeeze while he tried to get his breath back. "Un-fucking-believable. First time in weeks, my father walks in like I'm bloody twelve." He must have walked out again, too; otherwise, there would have been more outraged squeaking to be heard. Even if he hadn't, it clearly wouldn't have bothered Jim. He was too busy shoving his hips up to Bastian's touch, his dick sliding slickly through his fist. When he came, it was with a yell that was shamelessly loud, his head tossed back, mouth open enough for Bastian to see things he wished that he couldn't.

One more thing to add to the bizarre cavalcade of nightmares that sometimes plagued him. It was fascinating in a way, too. Bastian couldn't help himself when he eased out of Jim, smearing semen on Jim's stomach with shaking fingers, the other hand unknotting from Jim's hip to touch his jaw, trace the edge of his loosely smiling mouth. Jim let him slide two fingers in, faintly touching the careful mess of stitching before he closed his teeth in warning against Bastian's knuckles. "Right." He exhaled unsteadily, pulling back only when Jim relaxed faintly, because they both knew he needed his fingers. "I'll run a bath."

Then they -- well, not they so much as he -- would need to deal with the spluttering fury that his father would no doubt evince. All fun and games, he supposed. It was probably better if he did that on his own; Jim might decide it was a good idea simply to kill him and have it done. Bastian preferred that he not be required to deal with his father's money and position as yet. Keeping up with Jim was work enough.

Anything else might kill him.

He let that thought slide away, and focused on Jim -- taking the gun from his fingers, and then hauling Jim to his feet. The feeling of hot skin against his, hands clinging to him, Jim giving him heated, deeply amused looks as they stumbled for the bathroom. It made the world recede back, even when Jim dug nails into the back of his neck. They didn't need a lot of words, and Sebastian was content with touch.

* * *

An hour later, dressed in jeans and a button down, he staggered out of the guest house. Jim was unconscious again, sleeping, maybe, and his father hadn't called the police despite seeing the gun. He didn't knock, just let himself in at the side door.

The yelling wasn't at all surprising; the fact that his sister would allow it with the girls home was. Then again, no one had ever been able to prevent their father from having his way. Even their mother hadn't managed, and she had been a master manipulator.

"I told you not to go, I told you that we had guests, so the only person responsible for your trauma is you, Father!"

"I thought I should stick my head in and apologize. Richard and I weren't expecting anyone to come in." And all right, they'd been in the living room, but a locked door was usually a message, and there'd been a light on in the hallway. It should've been enough, he didn't need to hang a sock on the doorknob or something.

"Oh, Richard, is he? Your pouf with the gun?" The fact that those two things were the most prevalent of them all was certainly telling. Who besides his father would give those sins equal weight?

Brina's face tightened, her hands balling into fists. Who knew which of them had angered her more at that point. "Sebastian!"

That question was answered. He felt his mouth compress into a thin line, sliding his hands into his pockets. His father was still a surprisingly imposing figure for his age, but a man didn't survive volunteering for the worst diplomatic missions known to man by just being easy going. "Right. I'd rather we don't discuss my kinks out loud." Jim had probably looked a sight by then, blood at the edges of his mouth, panting with every thrust. It was hard to guess where the gun had been pointed, and Bastian just didn't care. Just turning the memory around in his head was enough to make him want more. "How about we keep that between me, Richard, and my therapist, hmn?"

"Your filthy perversions hadn't ought to be brought into your sister's house!" His father's temper was still roused, not that he found this at all surprising. It was pretty clear from the color in Sabrina's face that she was just barely managing to hold on to her own.

He looked to the floor for a moment, and took a deep breath. "Look, the door was locked, there's a car in the drive, and there were lights on. Clearly, the place is occupied. If anything, I should be pissed off that you walked in on it." There was no addressing Sabrina's concern -- the gun -- in an honest way. "And yeah, there are a couple of secured guns I bought with me. Locked cases, combination locks. When Richard's better, I've got a competitive shooting contest I need to travel to in Sao Paulo and I didn't want to leave them in London. They're fully licensed, _I'm_ fully licensed."

Sir Augustus Moran had never been able to let go of anything to Bastian's recall. It was clear that he wouldn't begin to do that today. "Oh, and your little friend has the combination just in case you might like to indulge in a bit of filthy sex play, does he?"

"Father!" Even Brina seemed to find that a bit much. "The girls can hear you!"

"Oh, Jesus, he knows the combination because we live together and he simply does." Because he’d bought them, paid for them, owned Sebastian inside and out. Never mind that they kept separate flats. Who kept things like that from their partner, boss, lover?

"Ha! And when you've had your brains blown right out and your di--"

"FATHER!" Brina yelled it loud enough that Bastian figured Jim heard it. "That is the outside of enough!"

"Look, that was completely consensual between two grown adults, so could you just stop railing on about it?" Sebastian hissed it quietly, stepping in closer to his father. "Hi. It's great to see you, too."

The way his father's mouth tightened said more than the rest of it. "You could at least have the common decency to leave your paramour in London when you come to visit your sister."

"I invited him, Father." She likely regretted that. "Both of them, so that's quite enough."

He didn't need to explain about the accident, or that Jim was quite fucked up, because then everything would go back to the sex and it probably made it worse. "Thank you, Brina. I'm sorry about this, if I'd thought we'd get walked in on..."

"We'll talk about it later." Yes, and she would have questions he didn't want to answer, although she had the right to ask them considering Jim's injuries. His sister would be worried about that, and he didn't know how to explain that Jim might be a danger to himself or a danger to other people but he was not a danger to Sebastian Moran.

"Right." Chastised with quiet words much more effectively than howling, because that shit was like getting out of bed in the morning. "Anyway, he's asleep now. What were you coming over to talk about, Father?"

The familiarity of his father's tight expression made his stomach sink. "I spoke with your uncle Cuthbert earlier in the week. He mentioned that he might have need of someone with your... skills..." As if he couldn't possibly have legitimate skills. The underwhelming faith of it probably explained a great deal of Bastian's life. "...at his London office."

"I appreciate it, father, but I do have a job. A job I rather like." A job he had every hope of only leaving via a body bag. He started to play stories out in his head, covers and different legitimate things he could be doing. "I'm not going to work at a desk eight hours a day, and I'm not going to be some high profile idiot's bodyguard."

He could tell that wasn't going to fly over well just from the expression of sheer irritation. "Yes, well. This is a much more honest sort of job. Fewer dangerous weapons."

Brina snorted. "Considering you gave him the taste for them, I can't see where objecting now is at all reasonable."

Bastian kept his hands in his pockets, posture carefully relaxed. "I like the dangerous weapons. If I ever get desperate, I'll go contract in the Middle East, but I appreciate you asking." It wouldn't move the conversation along any faster, but he wasn't going to keep the fight going. For once. He had Jim to get back to, even if he was stoned on pain meds and snoring.

Their father's mouth compressed tightly, his gaze narrowing. "I pulled a lot of strings, and so did Cuthbert."

"He's happy with his life, Father. You shouldn't keep pushing at him. It isn't good for either of you."

"No, it's not. I commanded a brigade! If that man hadn't needed to die, I would've pinned on _stars_." He gritted it out, still restraining himself. "I don't need people to pull strings for me for a job I don't actually want!"

It had been a fucking disaster, but the man had deserved it. He'd been responsible for killing more people than even Jim would consider remotely reasonable, and that was saying something. Jim might kill for a lot of reasons –- anger or because he wanted something the person had or even just because he was bored –- but it was usually a personal goal. It wasn't a political fuckery of epic proportions.

His father was turning purple, and Brina was staring daggers at both of them. "Sebastian, go check on Richard. I'm going to give Father his medicine and put him to bed."

"Sabrina!" All objections all the time. Nothing ever changed.

"Right. You could knock this time, but we won't be getting up to anything." He turned to let himself out, giving a parting wave. No sense in lingering. Jeremy was probably upstairs talking to the girls as a sort of live tap-dancing distraction.

He sulked his way down to the guest house, fury and humiliation and general all-around feeling sorry for himself being the most prominent bits of the trip. Christ. He had made some bad mistakes. There were no excuses for some of them, or maybe even a lot of them, but they were his and he wasn't going to allow his father to rub them in to the point at which he couldn't bear himself.

It made it easy to slink into the house, locking the door behind him. He made it to the bedroom, turning off the lights once inside. Undressing in the dark was easy, toeing off his shoes, watching Jim's lazy sprawl in the window light. He looked asleep, and if he wasn't, he was still going to pretend Jim was. Better just to crawl into bed with him, close his eyes, and be relieved that Jim was alive. Better to feel the man breathing in his arms, to get elbowed in the sternum for being too affectionate.

Then again, Jim surprised him sometimes. The feel of him turning towards him, muttering in his sleep, was enough to help calm him. Funny that a complete psychopath did that for him. Bastian wondered what it said about him that James Moriarty made him feel real. Made him feel like the world was worth living in it.

* * *

It was almost strange to sleep in until about 0800, no interference at all. He'd done that quite a bit, and left Jim to laze in comfort in the bed. He made sure his head was supported, that he was comfortable, and padded to the kitchen in his boxers and a t-shirt -- one that he was mostly sure was Jim's and probably made him look like a complete poufter -- to put on the coffee. He wanted to give Sabrina a little bit of time to cool down if she needed it. She probably did, considering the things that had been said last night.

His sister had never approved of guns. Even when they had been young and their father had encouraged them in his own preferred pursuits of hunting and riding, she hadn't liked them. She had always been the sort more likely to be found bandaging the dog or something. Brina had always preferred helping things to killing them. That held true. She was consistent, if nothing else, and he'd always loved her. She was his sister, even when she did piss him off, and he was apparently still her brother by the way she was letting him and Jim stay until Jim got well enough.

He was well on his way through his third cup of coffee by the time she came into the house, and he had begun to contemplate breakfast in the form of eggs and toast. Might as well, he figured. Jim would be up eventually, and scrambled eggs were soft enough that he could more or less get them down without making a complete disaster of things.

"Good morning, Sebastian."

Clearly she was still peeved with him.

Full names were never a good sign. Still, he lifted his eyebrows at her, and halfway saluted with the cup of coffee, standing in front of the stove and contemplating getting a bowl down. "Morning. Did things get worse after I left?"

"Don't worry. I slipped some alprazolam in with his regular meds. It helped immensely, considering the state he was in." She pulled out a chair and settled at the table. "Pour me some coffee."

He got out a very nice, tastefully plain mug, and set it down on the table. A quick pour, and then he threw in a spoonful of sugar before stepping backwards. "I tried very hard not to start a fight with that."

Brina waved a hand. "I know. I do, truly. I have to confess that I'm a lot more worried about the gun, though."

He took another sip of his coffee, and reached for a bowl to scramble eggs. "You shouldn't be. We were just... having a quiet night in."

Yes, that expression was one he had seen on more than one occasion. "With a _firearm_. I don't even know where to begin."

"I think we've previously discussed that I'm probably a little screwed up," he pointed out calmly. There was a container of eggs that he fished out of the fridge, and milk. "So yes, with a firearm."

The quiet stretched between them, thick and heavy. When she finally spoke, Bastian realized he had been holding his breath. "You both need therapy."

He shrugged a little, and hysterically all he could think was that he would've made a hell of a scandalous one-star. "That's very likely." It was also probably never going to happen. He broke one egg, and then another, and then another.

In all honesty, he didn't know what she might say next or if she would attempt to find some way to keep them both there and force them into therapy or... he had no idea. It was something of a surprise when she finally did speak. "Then for fuck's sake, tell me you're going to get a separate lock box for the ammunition. And don't give _Richard_ the combination to this one, all right?"

The edges of his mouth twitched. "He doesn't like to get his hands dirty. It wasn't loaded." He'd checked afterwards, which was all the wrong priorities but all the right feelings at the time. "Do you want some when they're done? He'll probably be asleep for another hour or so."

"I've already eaten. Jeremy was taking the children for dance lessons, so we were up early. Father was still sleeping when I left." Sabrina stood up and moved to stand next to the range, one hip resting against the counter. "He should be ready to go in a few days. It might be better if you did. Less dealing with Father. Now he knows you're here, there will be no stopping him."

"I was just thinking the same thing. We'll be headed to Brazil." Expensive hotels, heat, sunshine, Jim trying to bake himself beside a pool. No one trying to talk to him, which would suit Jim just fine, and Bastian just fine. "It'd be a tug of war to keep him from doing too much too soon if we were in London."

"I'll put together a package with the appropriate medications and supplies, including records. I presume that you will stay in the more civilized areas of the country so that he might have proper medical care." Reaching out, she dashed a bit of salt into his eggs, and then some pepper.

He gave a quiet laugh, and grabbed a fork to beat it all together. "Luxury hotels all the way for this trip. The expense usually placates him. It really is a shooting competition. Hundred thousand payout, American. It's also a great chance to ruin some up-coming Olympian's month."

"Sadist." She seemed amused, but he knew better. The unease was hanging at the edges of her eyes. "I worry about you, Basty."

"You've worried about me since I was born." He let the fork slide into the bowl, and reached out just to half-hug her. Because he could. Because every day, everything he did could be the last thing he did and that was sort of what made it all refreshing. "I'm okay."

He heard her sigh, felt the brush of her hair against his chin. "Yes, well. You saying as much would never be enough to make me stop worrying."

"I know." Bastian gave a sigh, half patting at her back. "And I know I'm fairly fucked up. Therapy is... never going to happen. I'd follow... Richard. To hell if he decided he was going there. I know that's fairly fucked up, too. I should be writing my memoirs or something." There wasn't any question that he could write, had written, was excellent at it, certainly had a lifetime of experiences to spill out onto paper. "But it's more exciting to be living instead. I completely shut down a Bratva, you know, Russian mob, with a couple of well-placed phone calls before lunch yesterday. After they paid us for something else. It was beautiful." Jim'd nearly choked on his own spit with hysterical laughter.

"Which implies that the two of you must be significantly more terrifying than the Russian mob in order to do that." She breathed in deeply and let it out. "That isn't what I would call reassuring."

He idly fished the fork out of what would become scrambled eggs, letting her have the space to move away if she wanted to, but not moving yet himself. "I know... you all sort of treated me being in the army like it was a joke. Because it wasn't blatantly brainy, because I went infantry. Like the army's easy, like five tours in Afghanistan was a walk in the park, like Kosovo was easy for me. You have to remember that I commanded four thousand men at the end, and all of the logistics and support, and strategic planning that went with it. What networks were we fighting and who had the money and which leader was the honest broker." He licked his bottom lip. "And every once in a while, I'd go out with a sniper team and show them how it was done, how to breathe and feel the shot. I missed that, lost sight of it in everything else, in stolen diesel shipments and my fucking driver getting his kneecaps blown through his jaw. Maybe it is PTSD. I've just got one person to worry about logistics and support and planning for, I can't handle more than that anymore, but I can keep an eye on the rest of the organization a lot easier." And with Jim trusting that everything he wanted would be in place when he wanted it, Jim could spread his fingers so much wider, get into things that seemed like dreams until they did it.

Brina was quiet, still against his side. "I'm never going to understand this, am I? That this is what you've chosen."

"Probably not, no." And there was no sense in explaining how fearsomely brilliant Jim was, how inspiring he was in his own psychotic way. "But I do enjoy it."

"At least tell me that you've made some kind of arrangement. Tell me that if you die in Brazil or Antarctica or some place I can't pronounce, someone will let us know."

He had never thought of his sister as fragile. Brina had always been the sort to take charge and take care of things, even before their mother had died. Bastian didn't like that vulnerability written across every line of her body. He pulled away a little, watching her face with the space between them. "I'll have Irene do it. I can't say one way or another what Jim'd do." Whether there would be explosions and vengeance, or if Jim would leave him facedown wherever he'd dropped, and mostly be angry at Bastian for fucking up.

It could go either way.

"Irene?" There was amusement in that question, in the way she shifted to look at him. "You make things so difficult sometimes. It would only take one visit for Father to make assumptions and leave you alone."

"It's more effort than I can really manage right now." He did an admirable job of knowing his limits and abiding by them, and extended social games were Jim's skit, not his. "Anyway, she'd hit on him, and then we'd be back to screaming hysterics again."

"Shame. It might be worth the screaming just to see it." His sister pulled away and leaned against the counter again. "Well. I reckon the best thing is for both of you to go. I'll make sure you have everything you need."

"Thank you. I appreciate that." He inclined his head a little, and just poured the egg mix into the hot pan. "I suppose I should try to talk to him again before we do go."

"Good God, no. Despite everything, he is still our father. I would rather that he not keel over of sheer apoplexy, and he might well if the two of you have one more conversation."

He laughed, more of a snort than amusement, but he still laughed. "I should still try. For old time's sake." Because it felt a little like the wheels were off, and it'd probably be the last time. He just didn't need to tell his sister that. Without a game to play, Jim'd probably start burning down the world.

She seemed to sense it, maybe, because the way she looked at him said things that neither of them could have said aloud. Ever. "Idiot," Brina declared instead, aiming a lazy smack at his arm.

"Maybe." He lifted an eyebrow at her, scrambling the eggs. "Can you grab a plate?"

The sound of rummaging through cabinets wasn't loud but it didn't surprise Bastian when he realized that Jim was standing in the door unshaven, rumpled and scruffy in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt that was indecently tight, particularly in light of the cost of the thing. "Mohrnin'."

It was a miracle that he was dressed. "Morning. Breakfast's almost ready." His hair was everywhere, eyes dark bruises set in darker circles, but he looked pleased with himself. The slanted smile was always a good sign, never mind the way he sloped into the kitchen and proceeded to drape himself around Bastian possessively.

"Mmmm."

Brina didn't so much as twitch, setting down plates before she rummaged for cutlery. "So. I should go check on Father."

He exhaled, sliding an arm around Jim just because he could, because it felt wonderful. "Right. I'll stop by and say hello later. Thank you."

"Yeah," Jim agreed, his mouth pressing against Bastian's shoulder. "Thans."

"I bet you miss glottal stops." The teeth on his shoulder bit in, lightly, but the fist in his side that he got for saying it was vicious enough to make him grin. "Toast's going to burn."

His sister was smirking as she turned away from them. "Well, seeing as your _Richard_ is apparently feeling amorous, I think I'll be going now. See you later."

"Thank you, Sabrina." He gave a wave, and relaxed a little when the door closed finally. "Did you enjoy the yelling last night?"

Jim laughed then, pushing his hips against Bastian's thigh, one hand curling around his elbow. "Yeah." Definitely so, if the look of him was anything to go by. "Hmmm."

"You feeling up to flying private jet to Sao Paulo?" There was still the strip search to go through, and customs, which was bizarre and irritating even for the private jet. They always managed to get the necessary items through. Bribery worked so much better than most people believed.

A hand snuck up and tweaked a nipple. Clearly the answer was yes.

He slid his hand down to Jim's elbow, and sighed hard. "Fuck. Good. I've got a shooting competition, and there's a small upcoming politician the Americans want knocked off."

The fact that sex was back as an option was fantastic, and it meant Jim was getting back to his proper self again. It was a relief, made him nearly sick with it somehow, as if the world was becoming exactly what it should be. "Sounz good." Very good, most likely, but he was pulling away, the teasing bastard.

Smirking and pulling away. He put the toast and a good serving of scrambled eggs on the plate. "You're going to make a fucking hash of the whole thing aren't you?" Fuck the Americans, too, once they got their money because he completely expected a double-cross at the onset.

Jim shrugged and danced backwards, shooting one of those malicious looks at him. Nothing made him happier than being a bastard. "Maybe." Probably. He would likely find a ridiculous number of texts on his phone outlining the whole thing at some point. Likely when Jim was supposed to be in the loo or something.

It was all fine. He closed his eyes for a moment, setting the plate down in front of Jim. "I'm not going to ask what the fucking fuck you were thinking when you shot yourself. I can guess. Please don't volunteer more than that." His mouth pulled a little as he sat down, fork in hand for his own plate. "But. Do it again, and leave me alive afterwards, and, and I will find someone to raise you from the grave just so I can strangle you myself."

The way he was eyeing the fork seemed thoughtful. He probably didn't want Bastian to stab him with it, just at a guess. "All right." The trip of the r was delicate, careful as he spoke so as not to touch his tongue to the roof of his mouth, and then he shrugged and smiled. "Seened a good idea a' the thine."

Bastian mostly wished that he had some witty response, but he didn't. He popped a forkful of eggs into his mouth. "That's what I figured. At least you won."

He didn't seem entirely satisfied about that, either. There was something about it that bothered him, that clearly put him on edge. No one else would be able to tell it, but he could. He always could, and he watched as Jim ducked his head, contemplating his eggs. It took a while before he spoke. "No' sure."

He pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth, and exhaled a thoughtful, "Huh," before taking a swig of his coffee. "Just as well you survived then. You'd've been one pissed the fuck off ghost." And he would've snapped, would've had to kill Sherlock in a way that wasn't very cunning at all. Just quite painful. Requiring a long period of time. And then John Watson, because he was certain that one wouldn't be enough. Not in the long run.

"Haunthed youuuuu." The sing-song quality of it was accompanied by a smirk as though it was completely brilliant. Maybe it was.

He snorted, and admirably managed one more forkful of eggs before Jim was out of his chair, grinning to himself at Bastian's quietly masked fury, deeply pleased as he sidled onto Bastian's lap. "You fucking would've." His heart, his stomach, needed to stop doing that horrible flip flopping. Teeth on his jaw didn't make it easier.

"F'rever." Breathed and wicked, and yes. Yes, sharp, making him hiss, and clearly he was feeling immensely better or taking too much of his meds, either one, because his libido was certainly taking a tour.

Still. Bastian wasn't going to say no.

* * *

He'd left Jim with the packed bags that he still needed to load -- a disaster pending -- while he headed back to the main house. Just to say goodbye. Hug his sister, talk to his father longer than he wished to. Get a bag of meds, and then skip the country. A simple to-do list, but he had a feeling everything was going to go all fucked.

Nothing ever seemed to go to spec. He wasn't entirely sure why he thought it might. Ever.

The first thing was that Brina had been called into emergency, week off or no. There was a message on the dry erase board beside the refrigerator declaring as much and telling him to drive by the hospital for the things they needed. She had also left a sheaf of prescriptions to be filled so that at least he would have plenty.

He might need to stop by two pharmacies just to be sure that they didn't ask any questions.

Better that way, easier. Another step that he didn't anticipate, but that was all right. He gathered them quickly, taking a good breath as if that would help the house stay in sense memory, piled up with other pieces and bits that were interrupted when he heard his father's tread. "Afternoon."

"Sebastian." It was a cool greeting considering he was the man's only son. "Sabrina tells me you and your... friend... will be leaving."

"Richard. Yeah, she gave him the green light for air travel, so we're headed to Brazil." He tapped the pile of prescriptions against his thigh. "I thought I should come by before we left."

Turning, he looked at the man. It was strange, the things a man sometimes realized. His father looked old and tired, not at all the way that Bastian remembered him as being. He was grey at the edges, and not just in a way that implied aging. "Yes. Well. Have a good trip."

Life was so much better when he didn't stop moving. "I know you're not well."

The way his father tilted his head, looked at him, always made him feel as though he were still six. "What did your sister tell you?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all, but I'm not blind, and I can see it on you." It made him feel oddly bad, but he wasn't going to change himself to appease the man. That was always the crux they came to in the end.

The silence between them lingered, stretched wide and long. "And what difference does any of that make, exactly?"

None. "I'm going to be out of the country for a while. Suppose this might be the last time I see you is all." He kept it simple, easy. relaxed. If his father just nodded and waved him off, fine. He'd done his bit.

"Well." His father seemed to think about it, his expression blank. "Perhaps it might."

That was all he said.

"Okay." He exhaled in a measured breath, calming himself as he stuck his hand out. "Okay. If that's how it is, that's how it is."

He still looked sick and perhaps a little sad, but things weren't going to change. Not at this late date. Not even when his father reached out and took his hand. He felt his jaw go a little tight, mouth compressing of its own volition. "Good luck." He'd try to make it back for the funeral, he supposed, making the decision in an abstract way.

"And goodbye," his father offered, and that was that.

That was all.

It took a bit of effort not to wipe his hand on his thigh as he walked away, out of the house and towards the guest house. Jim was sitting on the hood of the car, cross legged and texting almost patiently. "I'll load it up, and then let's get the hell out of here."

That smirk said as much as anything else, and then his phone began to make that ridiculously familiar sound.

_Trill-trill-trill_. He fished it out of his pocket, and gave a half an angry wave with it at Jim as he walked past him. Bastian didn't look at the screen until he was inside, facing his own bloody pile of packing up that he had to lug to the car.

Of course the little bastard had put his own shit into the boot, and his constant texts made Bastian want to hit him, or possibly just beat his arse. Either was a sincere possibility. Still, no hitting the face. He'd always been careful not to do that, but this, the hole in his mouth just made the urge to do that dwindle. By the end, nothing fit in as well as it had when he'd done the loading all by himself, but at least he was driving. Jim didn't like to have to drive, it took away the phone and the texting and everything else he needed to be in touch with. "Ready?"

That twist of a smile was utterly delicious. The answer was exactly what he expected.

"Always."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the initial healing, such as it was, weaning Jim off of the drugs had been when everything had started to fall apart . The headaches he got were sometimes blinding, and every once in a while his train jumped the tracks completely when even Jim wasn't expecting it. He could usually see the headaches when they started to hit, rifled his pockets for a handful of drugs, ended up in fisticuffs if Jim didn't get to them soon enough because one good way to make his head hurt less was to make someone else hurt more. The tracks thing was... quietly bothersome, but just took a nudge. No one but Bastian had really seen it, and Jim was as flawless in execution as he'd ever been to the rest of the world, the puppet master who saw everything and was seen by no one. The fact that it wasn't quite true was... Well. Bastian had a job, though, and he did his job. He did it damned well, in fact, and so long as he was the only one who saw it, everything was just fine.

"Poshel na hui!"

He'd missed London. Well, in that sort of nostalgic way because he still knew his way around the city like the back of his hand, but the nearly year-long tour of the world had been excellent work. Tiring, brilliant, exhausting, excellent work. All of those contacts Jim had held before his capture by the Ice Man, before his stint in prison, before his advertising it all to the world and then disappearing for a bit, each one had needed to be rekindled, poked with the proverbial stick. On one occasion, beaten soundly on the back of his enclosed patio until the dobermans had come out of fucking nowhere and left Bastian with little recourse but to scramble onto the awning to get to the low roof while he reloaded his pistol. But that was dealing with Zetas for a man.

Bastian dumped the bucket of silver paint onto the floor, re-coating the bare patches he'd just scraped up. They needed an awful lot of it to get the appropriate bang, more than would have been used in country. It slowly puddled out towards Jim's pacing spot, but he deftly avoided stepping in it without even giving the floor a glance. Just carried on, tan and a bit reverse-racoon-eyed in the fluorescent light, swearing in Russian because those gangs never really learned. They did respect anger, and from the pitches they were getting out of Jim, he was giving them a lot to respect.

He hummed to himself as he continued painting with steady, easy motions. The background murmur of Jim's angry voice was a constant, and it made him... perhaps happy wasn't the correct word, exactly, but it was close enough. It left him satisfied, feeling as if everything was right in the world, as though the events this time last year had been nothing but a vague bad dream. 

After the initial healing, such as it was, weaning Jim off of the drugs had been when everything had started to fall apart . The headaches he got were sometimes blinding, and every once in a while his train jumped the tracks completely when even Jim wasn't expecting it. He could usually see the headaches when they started to hit, rifled his pockets for a handful of drugs, ended up in fisticuffs if Jim didn't get to them soon enough because one good way to make his head hurt less was to make someone else hurt more. The tracks thing was... quietly bothersome, but just took a nudge. No one but Bastian had really seen it, and Jim was as flawless in execution as he'd ever been to the rest of the world, the puppet master who saw everything and was seen by no one. The fact that it wasn't quite true was... Well. Bastian had a job, though, and he did his job. He did it damned well, in fact, and so long as he was the only one who saw it, everything was just fine.

If he said it often enough, he might even come to believe it.

Jim'd been on his phone for somewhere around two hours now on various calls, tying up the line, so Bastian wasn't really surprised when his rang, that high noise that meant business and not texts, and not Jim. He slid the paint roller back a couple of centimeters, laid the handle on bare ground, and fished it out of his pocket as he crouched there on the floor, surrounded by everything he needed to make a really excellent boom.

"Colonel Moran."

_"Good afternoon, Colonel."_ Irene Adler's voice was, as always, cool and collected. It was good that some things were utterly reliable. _"I hope you are well."_

"Reasonably." He stood up, moving to the other side of the warehouse to stay out of Jim's voice range as much as possible. She wasn't a person he particularly wanted overhearing conversations, even if they weren't being held in English. The men he'd brought in to run security for the spot, they were fine. Ignorant of quite how much explosive-making materiel surrounded them, but fine. "What can I do for you, Mrs. Adler?"

_"I believe that you requested information should our mutual acquaintance resume normal operating hours in his freelance pursuits."_

"I did." It was like shedding skins, shifting parts -- the face he put on for the Empire, the face he wore in public, the face that watched Jim stand with one foot in the paint pool, contemplating it -- and the stories and sets of information changed with each skin. "Has he?" It hadn't taken as long as he'd expected. He would've wagered on five, six years. That was a safe sort of timeline if one was going to pull a game like that.

_"Oh, yes. Very quietly, of course. The urge to contact Captain Watson seems to have been irresistible. I'm afraid that was what gave him away."_ She grew quiet. Bastian knew she had a fondness for him. _"He's in Croydon."_

Croydon was a large bit of land, but they could find him there. It was less agonizing to search than, say, all of greater London. Bastian was quiet for a moment, watching Jim lose interest in the paint and turn around, pacing back in the other direction, leaving a line of one footed prints. "Can you be more specific than Croydon?" The easier thing to do would be, of course, to set up surveillance across from the old flat, to find Watson again. He knew he'd do that, but the rest needed to be done as well.

Silence lingered on the other end of the phone, as if the answer was being considered. _"I shouldn't think it would be necessary. I know you've kept an eye on the good captain. It would be remiss to do anything else."_

He closed his eyes, picturing her holding the phone, little showy and unnecessary laser sight dancing on her forehead. "I appreciate the information, Irene. Anything I can do for you?"

The sound of her smile could almost be heard over the phone. _"I feel sure we can come to some sort of agreement. Besides. I like knowing that you owe me something, even if something so small as information."_

Bastian exhaled, kept his eyes closed as he started pacing again. "All right. Just let me know when you want to call in that favour." She got another thirty seconds, and then he was going to hang up. Maybe look for a tranquilizer dart before he told Jim.

Definitely drug him, in any case.

He had suspected it for a while; if Jim survived despite his clear and utterly moronic destructive tendencies, then surely Sherlock Holmes would have somehow managed to do the same. He wasn't stupid, no matter what Jim wanted to believe. Maybe he wasn't as smart as Jim –- who was? -- but Bastian thought that the younger Holmes might be, just less ruthless.

"Thanks. Have a good night." He didn't wait, just ended the call and started back towards Jim. Jim already suspected, had said as much, but there was suspecting and then there was confirmation. "Jim."

One hand went up. "Ah. If it's bad news, don't tell me. I need to think. I am considering how best to preserve human skin." Turning, he looked across at Bastian. "All of the best recipes are so unfortunately lost to time. Perhaps I should take it up as a hobby."

"Honestly, tanning is tanning. And Holmes is back." But at least he was off of his cell phone.

"What... did you... SAY!?" The sound of his voice was immense, loud and echoing off of the warehouse walls. It was enough to stop the security staff in their tracks. Then again, someone would need to be completely insane for the sound of Jim's rage not to stop them.

Bastian slipped his cell phone in his pocket. "Sherlock Holmes has been spotted alive and well in Croydon."

"No." It was immediate, and the fury that was kindling in those eyes would have quite likely scared Satan into turning tail and running. "No. He is not alive, nor is he well, nor is he IN BLOODY CROYDEN!" Aside from the sheer depths of insanity, it was a bit like dealing with a tantrum-throwing two year old.

He licked his bottom lip, starting towards Jim with care, his hands out and up a little -- half surrender and half ready to grab him by the shoulder. "After it all happened, you said it was possible. And now he's been seen."

For a moment, it honestly seemed as though he would simply explode. The sheer depth of what was written all over his face made even Bastian want to take a step back from him. Just one moment, and then all of it seemed to ice over, the ticker tape behind his eyes running faster, liquid and sick. "Yes."

"Do you want me to set up surveillance outside of Baker Street and just snipe the fucker?" Giving Jim an option was usually better than just asking what he wanted to do. There were times for that question, and times to give ideas just to give him the opportunity to shoot them down.

"Nnnnno." Jim shifted his head to one side and then rolled his shoulders, his neck. "No. That would be much too easy. Let me think."

"Still, it's a good backup plan." He picked his way around the paint on the cement, hands still careful. "We've got time, and we know he'll be circulating around Dr. Watson."

That was when everything slowed down; the entire world sucking into the black hole of Jim's brilliance in that moment when a plan sparked into life. The slow smile that slid over his face made Bastian breath out in something like relief. Most anyone else would have felt gut-punched by it. "Sometimes you surprise me, considering your limitations."

He never took it personally, snorting as he settled his fingers on Jim's shoulders. "Good. So, what're we going to do to Dr. Watson?"

The way he leaned in, face tilting upwards, was brilliant. Just as he liked, and then his mouth was caught, hard and vicious, full of suction and tongue and lust. When Jim pulled away, he was flushed with color and smiling. "We are going to ruin him."

"Good. I think it's their turn." He lingered, Jim starting to chuckle and chortle to himself. "I'll get back to this bomb while you work it out."

"Oh, this is going to be _brilliant_."

That or it would take him so completely off of the tracks that he would never find his way back. One or the other.

He would just have to hold his breath and hope.

* * *

Ten in the evening, quiet, an easy night. A night that made him feel calm inside, and a job that felt simple. He took his time with the explosives, packing his car carefully as he dialed his sister. He was about three weeks late, but it wasn't bad. Short call, timed excuse to get out of it.

_"One day you'll remember I've gone to days and stop calling me late."_ Brina was clearly amused, _"And by then, I'll likely be back to working nights. Hello, Basty."_

"You moved hours again? Damn, just when I've gone to nights." He took one last look around the warehouse. This wasn't a time sensitive mission, no ticking clock in his head. Just calm. "Hello."

_"How've you been? The girls send their love, want to know when you and_ Richard _will be visiting again. Apparently they rather enjoyed the videos. Your nieces are clearly altogether too related to you. It worries me for their futures."_

"It's genetics. We're all right. Still settling into London." Plotting revenge, plotting to make Sherlock suffer in small degrees because if he wouldn't be so kind as to show his fucking face then they were going to make him. They were going to take people out. One. By. One. While Jim watched, until Sherlock put his head up unexpectedly. In and among the usual stuff, and the usual stuff also included explosives, so it was all good. He was running out of silver paint. "He's on an upswing, but the headaches are sort of. Special."

_"How bad are they? Not just the headaches, but the swings."_ Her thoughts as they rolled around were practically audible. _"I wish you would let me prescribe him something."_ She probably thought he would be less likely to die by Jim's hands that way.

"I know. It's just his usual cycle." Which he supposed sounded horrible, but after four years, a smart man recognized a pattern. Depression for Jim ran low and angry when it hit, and he'd been there for a while. Still psychotic, just a different edge to it, while the mania was slightly more dangerous for _Jim_ as opposed to the rest of the world. "I'm not even sure drugs would work. The headaches are..." He locked the warehouse door behind him, checking it for solidness. "Somewhere between howling in the middle of the floor to sitting at the coffee table with his head in his hands."

_"And which is worse?"_ He supposed it was nice, having a clinician for a sister. Better that than Malgueret. Last he'd heard anything about him, he had run off to Italy with his unattractive assistant.

That was good, because he was going to snap that little fucker's neck the next time he saw him, just because it would be enjoyable. "Coffee table, I think. When it hurts to the point he doesn't fight it anymore, it's... Wrong in a way." So he plied Jim with drugs and amusements and comfort. It disturbed him and he didn't know what to do about it.

_"You need to bring him in for some tests, Basty. Or if not here, then wherever you think he would get better care."_ The NHS certainly had its moments, but it was difficult to wait around in their profession.

"Yeah. I'll have to talk him 'round to it." It might take another week or two, and all that'd happen was that Richard Brook would end up with another legitimate prescription for drugs. New and interesting drugs. "I'll try, though. Thanks." For suggesting it, for letting him vent at his doctor sister. For not snapping at him about 'Richard' any more.

_"And honestly. You should try some of the new drugs. There are good ones, less dangerous. Maybe then I could worry less. It's just us now."_

"I should try them, or I should get him to try them?" It was just them, but that was oddly all right by Bastian. He'd always loved his mother more than his father, the officious old bastard, and missing his funeral because they'd been holed up in Juarez while Jim did horrible things to the local police, well. That'd been unavoidable. 

He'd had to jack a car just to get out of the city.

There was no hiding the amusement in her voice when she spoke. _"Who knows? Maybe both would help."_

"Ha ha." He got into his car, and started it up, Just taking his time, nice and comfortable. Molly wasn't going anywhere. "We'll see what I can swing. I honestly like him this way."

_"If he gets you killed, I will hunt him down and make him regret it. A lot."_ As if anyone could do that. _"You sound busy. I'll let you go so that no one can ask me questions about it later. My skills at lying are only so good."_

"If someone ever gets to the point of asking you questions, I'm already past fucked and into gangbanged. Give my love to the girls, and tell them Richard says hello. And promises never to send the Storyteller DVDs ever again."

_"Oh, thank God. Do you know how terrifying it is that they love him that much? I absolutely wanted to weep."_

"Oh, c'mon, it is kind of funny. There are kids countrywide now who think he's the next giant purple dinosaur." He licked his bottom lip, pulling into the complete lack of traffic. One delivery for Molly Hooper, fuck, he was going as crazy as the boss. "Yeah. Promise to call again sometime this month, and letting you get back to sleep."

_"Promise me you won't blow yourself up and I'll even sleep soundly."_

It didn't hurt anything to make the promise, even if it was a terrible lie. "I promise." In for a penny, as the saying went.

_"And think about the drugs."_

"I will. G'night." He hung up then, which was a lot better than where they'd been a year ago. Managed to call every month or so, pending his own stumbles. Sometimes, twice in the same month. She knew where he was, roughly. It probably worried her more than the vague nagging feeling that her asshole baby brother was off god knew where, but it was what she wanted.

He turned that thought over a few times, taking the drive in a relaxed way. Park a couple of blocks from her building, shoulder his duffle, gun inside his waistband, ready and comfortable as he jogged up the stairs to her flat. This was going to be the easiest job ever. One way or the other, he would greatly enjoy himself. The stairwell was empty all the way up and that was a fair relief. It meant that, disguise or no disguise, he wouldn't find it necessary to kill anyone to cover his visit.

Molly Hooper's apartment door said very little about her. It was plain, no flowers, nothing that particularly identified it as belonging to a woman. The fact that Jim had pretended to date her had nothing whatsoever to do with his general enjoyment of his latest job. Not a whit, no, no siree, no.

He leaned against the door so the peephole wouldn't do much good, checked his watch, and just. Knocked. Knocked and waited.

When the door opened, it was to a vaguely pretty young woman, her expression timid and surprised. "O-oh. Hello. I'm sorry, but you are...?"

"A friend." A friend with a gun, which he flashed as he leaned in through the doorway, sliding his fingers around the pistol grip. Her response was perfectly appropriate, a shaky 'oh', as he gestured her inside, and moved in close, closing the door behind himself. "Now, let's not make any sudden moves. Why don't you sit down on the sofa?"

The way she shook was obvious, terrified. It might have made someone else feel bad. "But I, I, I'm not, I wouldn't, I... oh please." People always did beg. Just once, Bastian would like to see someone stand there and glare at him, pissed off and waiting for an opportunity to beat the shit out of him. "Please, I, you can have anything that you want. I, I don't carry, that is, but there are some expensive things. I can give them to you, or my handbag, or...."

He locked the door behind him, quietly scanning the room for a moment. "I'm not here to rob you. I'm just here to ask you a couple of questions about Sherlock Holmes." Pay no attention to the ruck he was carrying, or how carefully he set it down, gun still trained on her. "You do remember Mr. Holmes, don't you?"

Aaah. That was it, the smell of fear, the shift in her breathing that meant her panic had intensified. She knew exactly what he meant, what he was looking for with that question. "I, how could I forget? He wa-was my friend." Was. Nice.

He could feel his mouth pulling up into an easy smile that probably wasn't doing anything for her nerves. "Was. Was, I like that. Are you sure you don't mean 'is'?" Bastian decided he'd have to go for Lestrade next. Just chip away at the periphery until the threat to the core was too much to bear. After all, Lestrade had been on the list the first time, and he'd been the one to call that off. "Why don't you tell me about him while I set up?"

"S-et up?" 

This. This was the reason he did these things. He enjoyed the scent of her, the stuttered words, the way she shook. Not just her, though; all of them. Jim was the only one who would never give him the pleasure. There was a reason that they were the way they were -- because it came so fucking easy.

He crouched down beside his ruck, carefully pulling the ready components out with his free hand. "You're a smart girl. Jim said as much, socially awkward, but smart enough for a normal sort. Now, tell me about Holmes. How did he do it? I thought about it, and we were watching everyone he knew in the days leading up to it all. Everything except you and his brother."

"I, I don't know what you mean. Honestly, I don't, I, his body came down to the morgue, I had to...." Miss Hooper was in tears by then. He supposed it was sort of brave. After all, he had known grown men who had been more afraid of him by then. It was wrong, of course, but brave.

He gave her another easy smile, finally attaching the power source to the unset timer. It always amused him how in movies they were complicated and digital for a pre-set device, when a kitchen timer was excellent and gave him ample time."You're lying," he suggested gently. "I've seen him around town. Now, tell me." 

"I don't know anything. Anything at all! He asked me, before he, he... He asked me for some help is all, he asked me to help Dr. Watson, oh, god, please." The tears made a nice touch, the way her voice shook. Holmes should have found a more cold-hearted confidante.

He set the arrangement carefully on the stove. "Gas, right? Now, what kind of help did you give him? Swap a body or two?"

"Nothing! It was nothing, I swear, just a prescription. Please! I don't understand, who are you?"

Funny, that she would ask that question so late in their shared experience. He could tell from her body language that she was considering making a run for the door. He brought the gun up again, drawing attention to it as he started back towards her. "You know who I am. Or at least, who I'm associated with, don't you? Let's not play games, you're a lot smarter than you're letting on."

"If you'll just let me go, I won't tell anyone, not a w-word. Pl-pl-"

He took care to noisily chamber a round, and aimed casually at her. "We need to get his attention somehow, don't we? Now, put your arms out."

She clutched herself instead, whimpering. "Oh god, please!"

He caught himself making a tsking noise while he stooped to fish out the tape, moving carefully, never letting his eyes off of her. "I wonder if Sherlock will mourn you."

Sobbing, Miss Hooper shook her head, her shoulders bowing with the force of it. It didn't surprise him when she tried to run; he just grabbed her before she could do more than take a few steps. She wasn't even a hard grab, just an arm around her waist before swinging her around hard onto the sofa.

He managed to hold the gun and the tape at the same time, wrapping her wrists twice with a good thick layer before he knelt back, grinning wildly. "That bomb there is going to go off. Now, you understand physics, I'm sure, and blast patterns. Pick a location, and what direction you'd like to face."

If she cried much harder, she would undoubtedly make herself sick. Lacking any sort of clear indication, Bastian jerked her towards a corner that would most likely provide her a little protection and shoved her into it. She stayed there while he taped her ankles, hysterical now. She stayed that way while he paced over to the timer, gun still trained on her. "Jim from IT says naughty, naughty Molly. Helping Sherlock." Not that Jim was there, but Bastian liked the way Molly got louder when he set the timer. "G'night, and good luck." With that, he shouldered his bag and headed out the door.

Ten minutes was plenty of time to get out onto the street and find a little shop nearby to watch all of his work come to fruition. All in all, it hadn't been a bad night. He settled in with coffee and waited patiently for the kitchen timer to set off the excitement. Far enough from the blast that if it did catch the gas mains, he was still good. And ten minutes was such a short period of time.

The flow of traffic was regular, moving past outside in fits and spurts, It was always enjoyable, the sight of people going about their daily business when he was on the verge of causing intense chaos. If Jim hadn't needed to finish his dealings with the Russians, Bastian would have made him sit with him and wait.

Jim always enjoyed his explosions.

He was checking messages on his phone -- sorting, prioritizing in his head who he'd task to handle what job -- when the explosion hit, rocked the street, spilled coffee onto the back of his hand and sent him to his feet because he'd learned, yes, never be the person who didn't react, never be the person who'd been expecting it. Run, run and stop like lemmings with everyone else because it was the people who did otherwise that got noticed. There was fire lingering in the air, and he could walk, stumble backwards, staring with other people because it was horrible and beautiful, and there was very little chance that she'd survived unless she'd outright escaped the building. Either way, it accomplished what they wanted.

Inky blue-black with orange and brightness and white smudged away stars and streetlights alike.

Extremely satisfying.

The sound of emergency vehicles trembled in the air, getting closer with every passing second. Some people were beginning to move away from the scene and Bastian joined them, slipping through the crowd with care as he called Jim.

_"Oh, my love, that was sex. Extremely arousing, mmmm. Quite the shame I couldn't be there with you. We could have found a dark corner somewhere. I do so like to be blown in dirty alleys."_

He licked at his bottom lip, looking over his shoulder again. There was still coffee on his hand, and he jogged towards his car now, intent on getting away from the scene like any sane civilian would've. "Could still. I'm coming home now." Home, warehouse, wherever Jim wanted him but it was times like that that a stray word given by him in public could be his downfall. "Anything else?"

The silence stretched out for a long moment, as though Jim were making serious considerations. _"I'm done with my work in Russia. I had someone else take care of the necessities."_ It would have been insulting before, perhaps. Now, Jim didn't often send him away on jobs. He tended to keep him close.

It was a little strange, but after the past year, he'd gotten over the urge to bristle about it. He spent enough time spackling over the times Jim faltered that he wasn't going to get insulted over something stupid like that. And Jesus, things had moved a bit when he could have a calm sort of relationship thought line while he efficiently fled a crime scene. It was all smooth going, too, getting into his car, starting the engine, careful not to mow down any runners or walkers in the mass of people heading away from the area. "I don't hear anyone screaming, so I assume it went well?"

_"I have recordings. We can play them together later."_ They would, too. Jim would probably want Bastian to ride him while they did. He found nothing objectionable in that.

He found a lot of it very enjoyable, particularly since he was getting laid with a lot more regularity than he ever had before. Never mind that even when Jim was on the bottom, Bastian was still mostly sure that he was the one getting fucked. He exhaled unsteadily, taking a turn and passing another emergency vehicle. "Sounds very tempting. I'll head back to the flat, then." And in the morning, they'd survey the damage and move on to the next target.

_"And you can tell me all about how she cried. Shame we decided against recording it. I should very much have liked to play it for him when he turns up again. Mmmmm."_

"That's what he gets for not doing as he agreed." Further away now, comfortably so. He didn't like that Sherlock was back, even if he did enjoy the games, setting things into play. He didn't like what Jim had done last time, had tried exceedingly hard not to think about it often. He could still feel the scarring on the roof of Jim's mouth, never mind the headaches. "I'll let you go. Emergency vehicles are clogging the place up."

_"I'll be waiting when you get home."_ One day, that dirty purr wouldn't make him hot. Bastian figured that would be the day he died. _"Bye-bye."_

He hung up, and exhaled as he pocketed his phone. What a great night -- a little terrorizing, a huge explosion, and another group of would be kingpins done for. Time to start planning for the next set, then. Steering one handed, he lit up a cigarette to ease the excited thrumming in his chest.

After all, they didn't need to bother with pictures when the news would soon be full of them.

* * *

Between the pleasure of killing off the Russian mobsters who had been annoying him and the constant run of the news, Jim was practically high by the time he returned. The abrupt motions, the twist of his movements, would have told the story even if Bastian had walked in cold with no knowledge whatsoever of the current situation. Jim was slouched down on the sofa, arms sprawled across the back, watching the news and the tickers with sharp focused eyes, almost twitching in delight, and that painted a perfect picture for Bastian as he locked the door behind him. 

At one point, they'd had two distinctly separate flats, and that had sort of melted away until they had a couple of burn flats, nice on the inside horrible and low key on the outside, that they rotated between, coincidentally at the same time. It was another thing on the list of things Bastian was never going to open his mouth about, even if it did mean his clothes were more likely to end up gathered on the center carpet and burnt. "Coverage been good?"

"They found her." That explained the hard-on, then. "Burned. Terribly. And alive. Just thinking about it... Mmmmmm. Exquisite."

He idly wondered where she'd crawled to after he'd set her in the corner, or if she'd even moved. He'd almost hoped she'd escape -- after all, ten minutes was a long time, and he would've been at least a mile away by then. It was rather disappointing. "Casualties in  
the rest of the building?" He set his ruck down on the floor near the table, shrugging out of his jacket. It felt so good to be done with the day, even a good day like that.

"Seventeen." The burst of consonants on his tongue implied bliss. It was probably a lucky thing Bastian had needed nearly an hour to arrive. Jim had clearly been overstimulated, and he didn't imagine that he had waited.

"Who're they blaming for it?" Bastian settled heavily onto the sofa beside Jim, legs stretched out in front of him. The picture they'd gotten of the initial explosion was really impressive, overwhelming the camera's exposure for a moment. He probably needed to shower, but he could wait, drag Jim in there with him. It wasn't as if explosives sniffing dogs were going to be trolling their place.

"At last count, the Real IRA, maybe the ETA, Al Shabaab, and Al Qaeda. Four isn't bad." He could tell that five would be better.

He snorted. "The RIRA can't even reliably get their hands on Semtex. Honestly. What idiot channel decided it was the Basques?" And took a moment to test the waters, because it was best to do that, to test, to be sure. He slid his hand in poor parody of stretching behind Jim's back. The shame of it was that he had a couple of arteries exposed if it was a poor idea, and right under the armpit was a hell of a place to get stabbed.

Clearly Jim hadn't decided that he was done with him yet. The worst he got was an elbow in his ribs. "Small French station. One American reporter picked it up. The other Americans are all yelling about Al Qaeda." One hand made its way down, stroking along his thigh.

He exhaled, shaky relief as Jim leaned into his ribs with that elbow. It was almost comfortable, with the other hand sliding over his trousers. "Of course they are. One trick ponies."

"Hmmmm." Oh, that was nice. Quite nice, and then Jim's fingers were tugging at his zipper, pulling it down and God. God, yes, that was a fair start.

He exhaled, and stretched his legs, lifting his hips a little. "Jesus, I need a shower and..." And to turn his head, pressing his mouth against Jim's neck because his skin tasted hot and warm and a little salty.

"You smell like explosives and fire and..." The deep hum, the way that he leaned forwards and breathed in deeply, made Bastian shake a little.

"Fuck." Fuck, fuck, he panted against his neck, pressed teeth against Jim's skin just as Jim wrapped a hand around his dick and started to shove down his trousers. Right, fuck it, he wasn't going to take it slow, he was going to get Jim completely naked, at least that stupid t-shirt off, and on him.

Fumbling, tugging, hell. He would have ripped it if he didn't think it would get him a punch in the jaw. Jim's voice was constant, talking about the force of the blast, the telecast, the shaky mobile video of Hooper rolling out on a gurney. His fist stroked, a little too dry, rough, and it was almost more than he could bear.

He fucked his dick up to Jim's grip, finally giving up and just shoving the t-shirt up to his armpits, enough to drag his hands over Jim's stomach, to slide under the waistband of the pants Jim might as well have not been wearing. Sometimes he wished he'd stayed for the blast, danger close right until splash out.

"Hot, fucking, delicious, god, you are sex, you smell so... fuck." Fuck, and Jim stopped touching him, jerked away, clothing pulled off, hair ruffled, and then he was back, straddling him, eating his mouth with kisses, fingers clutching violently at his scalp, his shoulders, the back of his neck.

Digging and ripping and holding and tearing. It was like being eaten alive, and that was wonderful, because he could pull at Jim, really feel him, slide hands down his back and feel every bone and twitch of muscle familiar and new every time, marvelous. He felt fingers draw blood on his shoulder, and clenched his jaw for a moment to ease through the pain, Jim's mouth hot on his. "Christ, let me have you, let me have something..."

"Yes. Yes, yes, ye-" Mouth, kisses, and Jim was scrabbling in the sofa, still holding onto him, reaching for whatever lube or lotion or who the fuck knew, who cared, so long as it was amazing. There was never any doubt about that.

They always managed, and when Jim pressed something into his hand -- self tanner, really, fucking self tanner? What the hell was that even doing in, no he didn't want to know. Raccoon eyes from the sun, fuck, right, he squeezed it onto his hand and dropped it to the floor while Jim took two hard, panting breaths, working blood caught under his fingernail out with a canine.

"Mmmm, you are..." Apparently pretty damned tasty. No surprise, that Jim would enjoy the taste of blood, and then Jim's fingers were pressing in the same spot, and fuck, that stung, but that was all right. Nothing was any hotter than Jim licking his bloody fingers.

"I sort of need that," he laughed, shoving two self tanner -- Christ -- covered fingers up Jim's arse without much prelude just to watch Jim's posture stiffen and then relax, feeling the heat clench around him.

The twist of his face likely wasn't all that attractive. Most people wouldn't think so, anyway. Good thing Bastian wasn't most people, and that Jim was sometimes as much of a masochist as he was a sadist, pushing his ass back to meet those fingers, hard and desperate. "I'm fucking you in the shower after this."

"If you can manage it." Just suggesting it probably meant that Jim would manage it if he had to pin Bastian there with a knee, but that was more about making promises happen than trying to piss Jim off. He pulled his fingers out, smeared the rest of the crap on his palm over his cockhead, and pulled at Jim's hips. "C'mon."

C'mon, easy as that, and he shifted, knees shoving deep into the sofa cushions to get lined up, get the head of Bastian's cock nudging its way just inside. The knife of his grin was bright when he pushed all the way down in a hard shove of his hips. "Ohhh, fuck!"

Wicked, frightening grin that made him want to try to flip Jim and fuck him down into the cushions until he was begging for a reprieve, except it never really worked that way, and he certainly had a better view on his back with Jim over him, cock jutting out half-hard and coming around as Bastian started to thrust.

"Nnn, honey, that is just the way. Nobody does it like you." Bastard. God, he was such a bastard, and he was pushing Bastian down, slipping his hands up, slipping the buttons loose roughly, fingers twisting at his nipples.

Just little twinges of pain and discomfort, tiny things that caught his attention, the hard dig of fingers in his ribs making him groan and pull Jim down, closer, thrusting harder, thighs aching because it didn't seem like enough, nothing ever did. If they fucked one another right through the floor one day, it might come close. For now, Jim was fucking him as if he weren't even real. The dirty thought of the utterly ridiculous things available in the average porn shop made it even hotter.

It didn't really matter if he were real or not, in the bigger scheme of things. Just that he was there and he could feel that, that he had one hand clutching so hard to Jim's ass that he was going to leave bruises right down the crack like the man was a fucking recorder, and that it all felt glorious.

"Tell me you like it." Teeth on his neck, biting, sucking pressure, and Jim's ass clenched around him tightly.

He gave another hard thrust, faster, almost there from the pressure of teeth against his neck. "Like it's... not enough. Fucking love it."

Loved every second of it, could feel Jim's hand stripping his own cock with sure efficient strokes, and then he shifted, lightning quick, and bit the shit out of Bastian's shoulder.

In the end, he wasn't sure what came first -- the startled howl of agony, or the hard orgasm that didn't give up when the pain hit. It knotted together, tied up with Jim's laughter. He was still working his own prick when Bastian finished panting, chuckling to himself. "Sick fucker." Whether he meant Bastian or himself, well. It was anyone's guess.

He exhaled, laugh half hysterical. "You have blood on your teeth. My blood. Who's the fucker?"

"Mmmmmm, me." Him, and Bastian reached out, pushing Jim's hand away from his prick and beginning to stroke him.

The roll of Jim's eyes was excellent, rubbing his cheek against the wound he'd just inflicted on Bastian. He was slowly going soft in Jim, but it didn't matter. The little twitches of Jim's hips told the story. His breath grew ragged, his fingers clutching at Bastian's hair. It hurt like hell, but the pull of his hands meant that he could see him -- see the blood and the way he shuddered, gasped, shook when he came. See every twitch of his mouth and movement of his eyebrows up close and gorgeous. Some days, he wasn't even sure why Jim bothered paying him when he got rewards like that, like Jim finally slumping on top of him.

He needed a bucket of bleach for the damn sofa.

When Jim finally spoke, it was muzzy, quiet. "I hope he loves my little present."

"I think he will. We'll have to set up another one." He closed his eyes, settling a hand on the back of Jim's head. He had no plans of moving any time soon, even if he was going to have to scrub self tanner off of his fingers and dick.

He could only imagine what it was going to look like later.

The rasp of a tongue against the bite on his shoulder made him shiver. "Shower." A demand, but tired. Quiet.

"Later." He could enjoy that, too, the comedown and the mellow. "That way you have a fighting chance of getting on top."

Jim's answering laugh made him feel warm all the way down to his toes.

* * *

He was half sure his jaw was broken. Only half sure, because games like this usually meant a man was needed to speak, and speak well, the secrets of his masters, so it was probably just fractured a little, sore and bruised and he was focused on it because it _was_ his fucking face and he wasn't accustomed to his jaw hurting. Just his eyes and, once in a blue moon, the side of his head. 

He'd put up a good fight, but not good enough by all indications, because his hands were zip tied behind him. Not that it was going to be a long-term problem. He could get out of zip ties, he could get his hands in front of him if he needed to, but just then he needed to see what came next. They had to know he was waiting because they had his fucking records and knew he was hardened to that sort of shit. That under better circumstances, if they'd snatched him up for the reason he suspected they'd snatched him, he might consider it all foreplay.

If Jim had planned it, it would definitely have been foreplay. In this case, he was fairly certain he knew whose plan this was.

Clearly they should have moved a lot faster to get themselves settled and done with things, fast enough that they would be out of the UK and off killing someone in Tanzania by now.

Shouldn't have just engaged Sherlock again, but. They had. They had, and now Bastian suspected this was the official knock it off warning. Or at least he hoped it was a warning, because he was tired of waiting.

"I'm waiting." He craned his head, looking up over his shoulder and around. There was a footfall up and to the left.

"Mmmm. Yes, waiting. You are... quite good at being patient, it seems. Your military records contain a number of very interesting situations which would prove that to be the truth, Colonel Moran."

He shifted his jaw, carefully testing his range of motion as he heard another footfall coming towards him. "Why am I here?" He was going to feign innocence, that was always the way to go. The voice was Mycroft Holmes's, from the recordings he knew. From in depth intelligence analysis. He knew that Mycroft would know as well that Colonel Moran would keep meticulous records in and among the bloodshed.

"I expect that you know exactly why you are here, Colonel; however, if you prefer to play at ignorance, we can accommodate you." He sounded exactly like the smug bastard he was purported to be, at least until the moment he stepped into Bastian's line of sight.

Then he just looked like a bloody lord, crossed with Mary Poppins and Sherlock's long look. Bastian leaned back in the chair, as much as he could manage. "You'd be surprised. I don't know what you think you're going to get out of this." The low noise his phone gave for texts now went off, from somewhere not in his own pocket. Fuck. The smile in no way reached those pale eyes. He had seen murderers with more emotion than this man. "Ah. That would be your... let us simply call him your friend. I must admit, his ire has been quite interesting. Not at all like the man we held last year. Not at all as we expected."

"Well, clearly this is different than what you fuckers did last year. You brought it all down on your heads yourselves with that stunt." Just the barest flicker of reaction, more a twitch of his nostrils. "You started it."

"Perhaps." It was likely the closest thing to admittance Holmes would ever make. "Consulting criminal. An interesting choice of occupation for a man capable of so much more. His choice of you as his right-hand man is also quite remarkable. You aren't stupid, at least not in relation to the average man on the street." That was one of the most backhanded compliments he had ever heard, and he was fairly sure he'd heard a lot of them.

"No." No he wasn't stupid, no he wasn't going to engage, no he wasn't going to explain why Jim was the way he was. "I'd still be in the army if you lot hadn't decided one dirty corrupt host nation policeman's death was worth more than fifteen ISAF lives."

"Mm. A most unfortunate series of events, I do admit. All the same, it does seem that Mr. Moriarty values you highly. Your talents, such as they are, don't seem to be going to waste." He leaned in just slightly, head tilting to the side in a parody of interest. "You understand, of course, the necessity of what I am about to do."

He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing, bracing himself. Not for immediate pain, but casting around for things in his head to use for a longer term. "What else are dingy empty warehouses for? Nothing personal of course, I understand."

Right up until he got out of there, alive or not, it'd stay impersonal, cold, cut away at him bit by bit. No, that was shit. That was giving in, and he wasn't going to give in.

When he opened his eyes, he didn't waste a second before surging forward, bringing the chair up with him, flex cuffs digging hard into his wrists when he managed to headbutt the asshole right in the jaw. His chair fell all of the way forwards from that, but he tucked his head down, caught himself mostly on his shoulder and rolled it onto its side. He could hear Mycroft making startled noises, but it didn't matter as he managed to get one leg free of the chair flex cuff off of the end of the leg. The man's personnel were slow responders, and fell on him far too late. "Fuck you, and fuck your men, and fuck your not-dead brother who hasn't got the god-damned sense to keep his head down! You're all going to die if you do this, this whole city goes up!"

If the ass had thought that Jim was unstable a year ago, he clearly underestimated how much things had changed since then. He supported Jim now, braced him in ways Holmes couldn't understand. If anything happened...

Mr. Holmes staggered up from the floor, glaring with a fury that would have shaken almost anyone. Almost. "Oh, that much is entirely clear." He moved his jaw slowly, working it with steady motions, fingers rubbing. "Nonetheless, considerations have been made. So long as you are returned at least marginally intact, I believe there are fair odds that he won't attempt any such thing. It must be difficult when the man who does your dirty work is... incapacitated."

"He was fully capable before me," Bastian pointed out from his awkward position on the floor. At least, until they started to haul his chair upright. "Just because he doesn't like to get dirty doesn't mean he won't." But maybe the scale had been smaller, the reach less expansive. Bastian wasn't really sure, he'd have to check his records.

"Some people might think so. I assure you that he will be fully occupied." He paused, tilting his head to the side before he nodded. "Do it."

It surprised Bastian when he saw one of Mycroft's straight laced looking men came at him with a stiletto. He was flicking it in a showy way, right up until he brought it down hard, diagonally over Bastian's kneecap. "Fffuck!" It was strangled, but he wasn't going to scream. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction, never mind how fucking badly it hurt.

When he did it again, the world blacked out for just a second, narrowed to a pinpoint of light and then widened again in a way that made him want to puke. He swallowed instead, breathing through his nose. The low buzz, buzz, buzz again, Jim trying to get hold of him, and then Mycroft's phone ringing. Chest pocket, musical noise, and he needed to focus past the pain or the thought that his knee was probably good and fucked. The next strike came down over his left shoulder blade, through the fabric of his suit, the shirt. It was excruciating, and he couldn't quite suppress the sound that grunted out between his teeth. There were hands on him, holding him in place, and then a strike that landed against his knee in accompaniment to another fist to the same spot on his shoulder blade. Persistent fucks.

"I wonder. Should I let your raging little... friend listen for a while, or is it simply better to leave you in a ditch somewhere?" Ringing again, because Jim was persistent and concerned and probably standing up somewhere making faces while the phone rang and rang and rang. The next slashing strike was jagged against his back, force of a punch. Stabbing was probably too dangerous, so the plan was to incapacitate him, then.

They were doing a fucking good job at it, even as he started to struggle harder. He managed to get a foot back, slammed his heel against bone, but the force was terrible. It probably hurt him more than the guy he struck, and then one of them wrenched his arm so hard that he couldn't help yelling.

God fuck shit damn fuck. "Hmmm. Perhaps not. Somehow, I doubt that he would enjoy it in quite the same manner he seems to enjoy the suffering of others." Smug fucking bastard of epic proportions. The urge to hit him didn't lessen with the next blow.

"The hell..." Fuck, fuck, he needed to focus and breathe , not sound all fucked up and ragged because it hurt so bad. "Makes you think this won't, won't blow up in your face?" Again, again, because it had the first time and no matter how distracted Mycroft thought Jim might be, he had it all wrong. Bastian was the replaceable one. He was the one who kept up with administrative bullshit, the one who got his hands dirty. He was the one who killed people. Jim could replace him without batting a lash, but he would make sure that the people responsible suffered and suffered and suffered before he allowed them to die in utterly grateful misery.

"For the sake of my brother, that is a chance I am more than willing to take."

He'd been waiting for the blow to the back of his head, the sign of amateurs who didn't know how to make torture last. It was almost a relief when it came, that blessed short circuiting of all pain.

* * *

It ebbed and flowed in a natural sort of pattern. He'd been injured before, but he was usually conscious for it, start to finish, not ending up propped up in an alley with his ears ringing, every joint and limb aching or screaming fucking agony at him. They'd left him a cell phone, which was a small fucking mercy because both legs were broken and he could see bone jutting out of one. He managed to thumb over to Jim's number, though, pressed the button.

_"Where the fuck have you been?"_ Magnesium heat of fury, all spilling over the telephone. Somewhere along the way, he must have missed something, because Jim's voice was dark and hot and _worried_. How did that even happen? Worried. Jim didn't worry. _"Turn on your fucking location services!"_ He was incredibly loud.

"I." He spat out a mouthful of blood and welling up spit, and tried to focus. Settings, he could get there. Took a couple of tries, then location services. Find my phone, right, he could hit that and then Jim'd send someone. "Think 'm going into shock. Amateurs."

_"Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up!"_ God, he was angry. He sounded completely furious. _"No, not you. You keep talking."_ It made no sense.

He blinked, focusing on the bright white glow of the screen. "Sorry. Can't really make much sense right now. 'Vrything hurts, and I can't stand."

Couldn't do dick all, in fact. His legs were fucked beyond recall. That bone thing, it couldn't be good. _"Just keep talking. I'm making plans."_ Beeps, noises, sounds, talking and then muzzy nothing. Then talking again, loud and angry, and oh. Noises. Footsteps? He had no idea.

"'S not like if I stop talking or something, thing'll get worse." No monster was going to come loping down the alley, and he really didn't think he had high chances of any other sociopaths finding him and deciding to fuck him up worse before help came. "How long's it been?" His head was fucking ringing.

Jim didn't answer, or at least he didn't think there was any sort of reply. The world was a strobe of flashes, one moment there and one moment gone, and then his phone began to beep so loudly that he had to pull it away from his ear. After that, his arm seemed unwilling to move again. He was too tired, which was madness, because he was never too tired. "Sir?" Smart, sent a flunky. That was smart, in case he was the very messy bait in a trap.

"'S go." He had no idea what he meant by that. It was probable that this guy didn't either, but he clearly had a partner or six. Either that or that motherfucker Holmes had planted men to watch him after all.

He wasn't sure so he didn't move to help them when they came closer. His eyes kept closing, and then he was being jostled so everything hurt fresh. Maybe he screamed. Maybe he didn't, but every little motion jarred him. Somewhere along the way, the world whited out in a wash of agony, and when he finally woke, he was on the jet and a lot of things that had been screaming at him were a distant thought.

"Morphine." Jim sounded off-handed about it. That was normally the way he sounded when he was calling in favors from mercenaries.

Basic drugs weren't really on par with mercenaries. He stared for a moment, and managed to say, "Right." Right, because Jim looked haggard and bruised around the eyes, but alive, even if Bastian didn't want to move and see how bad things were. "Where are we?"

Jim's mouth twitched. "On our way to Switzerland. Malgueret has a friend there, or perhaps more like an old enemy. He was grudging about it."

"Okay." He blinked, watching Jim's expression. Switzerland, for some what, doctor who wouldn't ask questions? Because that was the first thing Jim thought of. "How bad 's it?"

That look. He knew that look. It was an expression that usually meant a few small villages in third world countries would be razed to the ground.

Or possibly several.

"We've been heavy on the morphine. I want a professional to set the bones. And not your sister. You look like shit."

"Feel like shit, 'f it helps." He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, Jim was sitting across from him again, cell phone in hand, legs loosely arranged under him. Felt like he'd lost a little time, and Jim was staring, reflectionless eyes not blinking until Bastian blinked. "Any permanent damage?" 

"Hm." It seemed to register with him finally, slow and steady. "Yet to be determined." His eyes seemed to stroke slowly up and down each limb, each available inch of free skin perused thoughtfully. "We'll have enough explosive to destroy all the key sites by Tuesday."

"Shame I probably can't help." Not just then. Half of him wanted to talk Jim down from it, and the other half... He didn't know what good that'd do. Just that if Jim did it, things would probably spiral right out of control, and he was in no shape to pull in any of that, to keep it from going so far they managed to get caught.

"Mmmm." The analytical eye continued to trace over him. Bastian wondered how long that had been happening, how long it had been.

He struggled to focus, to keep himself alert. "I think this is a trap, Jim. You can't... Take your time. You don't need to rush in and make him suffer."

"Your bones. Are sticking out of your leg. Wrapped in gauze while I feed you enough morphine to kill any less stubborn bastard." That steady black gaze said.. things. All sorts of things. "You belong to me." One hand waved, and he leaned back, head tilting to the side. "I'm going to make sure he regrets every drop of blood. Every one."

"It can wait, though." Until he thought it through, until Bastian had a chance to check behind him because, no, Jim hadn't quite been the same since he'd rung his own bell with a blank. "He's. He's expecting you to move fast."

At least that smile was right. Serene and sort of terrifying. Made sense. "I know."

He nodded, closing his eyes. Jim was there and as long as he was mostly awake, he could try to mitigate it. A little.

* * *

Drugs.

Drugs were so very...

Good.

There were things that hurt. He knew they hurt, because it would become nearly unbearable and then he would fumble at the button in his hand. Press press press. Press. And it would fade. And then it would rise up again, and then it would fade. He didn't know for how long that went on, because he had moments of what felt like alert and then they faded away. But there was always Jim. Jim's voice in the background, there and gone, Jim's eyes in close to him, Jim's knee in view, his legs seeming narrow and bony in a way that made Bastian want to pull him into bed, but he couldn't really move.

Anywhere.

At all.

When he finally managed to dig his way up through the haze of.... whatever, he hurt like a motherfucker and he wished that the world hadn't sharpened up again.

"About time."

"Fuck." He blinked at Jim,, watching him get up from his chair. "What... how long 's been?" He twitched his right arm, and it moved all right, moved good, even if someone had taken the button out of his fingers. A roll-eyed look around revealed it in Jim's fingers.

He pressed it.

Oh, yes.

"Four days. Well. Almost five. There were infection issues." Jim eyed him steadily. "I had Malgueret's friend killed on his way home."

"He was that good, then." He stretched the fingers of his right hand, checked the motion. Little wobbly, completely intact once he got off the drugs. His eyes were all right, entirely fine except that reality went swimming a bit when he moved his head.That was the worst of it, then. Nothing really vital fucked up that he could tell. Everything else he'd cope with. "Infection?"

Jim's fingers steepled together thoughtfully. "Mmm. The compound fracture, not unexpected, honestly. Well, you were injured for quite some time before he got to you. I paid him more than enough to solve that problem. He fucked it up. I flew in Malgueret. I think he was pleased."

"Not much of a friend, then." Testingly, he moved his leg, staring down at the crisp clean sheets. Yep, it moved and yep, seemed to have two legs under the sheets. Fuck, that'd have to do, because he wasn't in any shape to get up and about just then. He tested his left arm, and the pain was really sort of brilliant for a moment.

Jim twitched the sheet, peering beneath it. "Oh, no, but he did seem to enjoy stepping on the man's spectacles. I quite enjoyed the sight." Of course he would. "It was a great deal more pleasant than slicing open your leg."

He watched that, too, Bastian was willing to bet. He tried to sit up using his right hand because it didn't hurt as bad as the rest. "Right. Then I should be good in. How long?"

Slim shoulders shrugged beneath expensive jacket. "Six months. Perhaps. With adequate physical therapy. Mycroft Holmes is going to die in flames. After every single thing held dear in his cold heart has been destroyed."

Six months. Six. Fuck. "You're kidding me." Six months, he didn't have six months, he took two days off and stuff started to pile up beyond comprehension, he'd already lost five. Maybe six, it was hard to guess. "How long until I get out of _here_?" Wherever 'here' was. For all he knew it was a hotel room that'd been done up. A place Jim rented. There wasn't any knowing, but there was a lot of guessing.

That flirty look was familiar, at least. "Now, now, dear. Wait for the honeymoon." Ha. Bastard. "Comminuted fracture, compartment syndrome. Started swelling on the trip. I had to hire cleaners for all of the blood." Oh. Great. "Compound fracture of the other leg. Your joints are fu~ucked." Sing-song, yes, but that usually meant he was planning or executing something so horrific that normal people would pale at the mere suggestion.

He licked his bottom lip, and focused on focusing. "Okay. I..." Fuck, probably out and about in a wheelchair in another two weeks. That was going to be hell on his sanity, and physical therapy... "You been all right?"

"Perfect." That was a miserable lie, told too brightly, a pen twirling between his fingers. "Excellent. My plans are falling into place. I'm going to kill them all." He seemed to consider it. "Perhaps without hiring someone else."

"I'll recover. Sooner than you think." He watched Jim tilt his head down a little, eyes scrunched at the corners in all the wrong ways for the brightness in his voice. If things had been normal, he would've goaded at Jim, gotten him cornered, gotten the meds into him somehow. They were just painkillers, but he was Jim and contrary. "When was the last time you slept?"

There seemed to be some serious thought involved in that. "When was the last time you didn't?"

That was all the answer he really needed. "I think I can manage awake for a bit, if you want to put a gun in my hand and have me eye the door. Got a good shot at it from here." As long as he didn't do anything like move his head. The sharp crack of Jim's smile told him it was the right answer, even if he wasn't going to give Bastian a gun just then.

"It seems quite a nice idea. I sincerely doubt that it is, in fact, a good one. You're..." Ohhh, button. Nice. "...unlikely to manage it. Actually."

Fuck, thwarted by the master. It didn't surprise him, just lingered at the edge of his mind as he kept eye contact with Jim. "C'mon. You start seeing spiders and shit out of the corners of your eyes after about seven days."

Watching Jim stretch and yawn was the biggest lie imaginable. "Then I have two more days."

"Did I say seven? I meant five." He closed his eyes, because now Jim was just fucking with him and he was too drifting to do more than admit defeat.

Maybe the button was pressed again. Maybe it wasn't, but he was exhausted, and the pain was a bitch.

Whether he wanted to or not, Bastian drifted off again.

When he woke up again, he was alone, which was something of a change, but there was a cell phone on the stand just beside the bed. Still, he stared at it for a couple of moments before he remembered that the right hand was pain free, relatively, comparatively, and that he could reach out and keep himself occupied with the phone. After all, Jim left things places for a reason.

It wasn't that difficult, in the end. He slid the bar, typed in the passcode. He only fucked it up twice, and the first time was because the trill went off and he mistyped the thing. When he got it open, the trill proved to be a photo.

Dead pigeons.

Jim.

Wild grin.

Oh, things were bad.

"You manic fucking arse." He flipped back a bit to see what other pictures he'd gotten, but he could all but hear Jim going _'Pew! Pew pew!'_ and couldn't really think about which of his guns Jim had his hands on. The correct answer should've been none of them, and it had been that answer for the last year. Fuck.

Jesus. Fuck fuck fuck.

He was going to have to drag himself out of the bed.

It was completely fucking impossible.

The door pushed open, and it proved to be Malgueret's unattractive girlfriend. "Idiot! For god's sake, settle back down before something falls open. I didn't mind Hainesworth dying, but if Darius follows, I'll gut you myself."

"Christ, could one of you stick Jim with a fucking sedative! He's up on the roof shooting pigeons!" Which wasn't that problematic, but _shooting_. Jim had a gun and he was how many days without sleep, and not honestly all right, but Bastian liked to pretend and they still had good times, lots of them, and most of the time everything was perfectly good and well.

It was just dangerous when Jim was risking himself.

Sometimes he wondered if Malgueret's bint wasn't related to Jim somehow. They had the same black glare, and very similar expressions when it came to annoyance. "What, and have him kill one of us? That isn't worth either of our lives."

"Worth more to me than you." He stopped short of trying to run roughshod over her, though. Maybe he could get him back off the roof. Maybe he could get him to surrender the gun.

Maybe he could drag himself out of bed. Maybe.

...nope.

She gave a hefty sigh. "Fine, fine. If he kills me, Darius will cut off your legs at the knees."

"Sure, if you want to reenact Titus Andronicus." An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and Jim'd see that through. Bastian waited, watched her move a tiny bit closer to the door, still poised to move if he had to.

The phone buzzed again.

This time the little fucker was beaming, pistol waving wildly in his hand. Not even God could predict what he would do next.

Sullivan peered over at it and made a vague noise of impatience. "And you want me to go out there with that?"

He grimaced, dialing Jim's number, waiting for him to pick up. Fuck fuck fuck.

It rang through to voicemail. He was persistent, though, and Jim ought to know as much. He called again, and then again, and then again.

_"Why are you trying to interrupt me?"_

"Because you're on the roof waving a fucking gun around and taking pictures of it!" He snapped that, because his main job was to keep Jim safe, to keep him isolated enough from everything that could go wrong.

To keep him from doing something so spectacularly stupid even surgeons couldn't put him back together again.

_"Well, who else is going to kill the damned things? Flying rodents, some people call them. Mostly, I find myself annoyed that they continue to shit all over the car."_ The sound of him firing was unpleasant through the phone.

Even if Bastian liked the sound of gunfire, and he did, context was unsettling in ways it wouldn't have been a year ago. "Boss. Boss, you're all fucked up, and you have a gun in your hand. I remember the last time we had that combination. Can you come down off the roof?"

_"Then who will kill the pigeons?"_ Where the hell were they that no one had noticed him shooting the damned things, anyway?

He closed his eyes, head leaned back against the pillow. He hoped the crazy bitch had the sense not to eavesdrop, or at least to not admit to it. "I don't care. They can fly off with the fucking car for all I care, we can buy another car. I can't buy another _you_."

Fuck. Bastian felt like a complete idiot. This wasn't anything he was equipped to deal with, and he didn't know what to do about it. _"Well. I am one of a kind. It would be frightfully expensive."_ Bastard.

"We'd have to try human cloning." He cracked open one eye, and there the bitch was, with her arms crossed over her chest looking smug. "Jim. I know I'll regret this, I know you'll make me regret this, but please."

It was nearly possible to see the smarmy expression, even without a visual. _"Well. I suppose I might."_

"I swear, as soon as I'm half mobile, I'll help you burn it all down. Just... wait for me." And that meant living long enough for Bastian to get there. Some days, he wanted to call his sister and tell her he was sorry, that she was right. That Jim was completely cracked and that the drugs probably wouldn't help.

Most days, he was just trying to get through life.

_"Well. I suppose I can wait."_ He seemed to think about it. _"Sometimes, waiting is worse than the expected explosions. And perhaps a slow burn is all the more terrifying. In perspective."_

"Let the anticipation eat them alive." He closed his eyes again, still holding onto the phone. In the background, he could hear the door to the roof opening, felt his chest relax.

Clearly he was going to have to find a better way to hide all of the guns and ammunition.

"Well?" Right. Malgueret's girl.

Jim hung up somewhere in there, and Bastian thumbed off the phone, holding it to his chest for a moment. "I'm too fucked up for this shit right now."

She leaned against the door jamb with one thin shoulder, smirking. "I can bring you some Alprazolam."

"No. Don't think it'd do anyone any good." He wasn't even sure what it was, and he just wanted to rest. Just a bit, but he had to wait. Had to know Jim was back in the room, gun safely put away again.

"Trust me." Yeah, well. Not so much, but a man had to do things he didn't like sometimes.

Even when he was exhausted and had two broken legs. "Where are we, anyway?"

Sullivan waved a hand. "Once your friend offed Hainesworth, it became pretty clear that we had better go underground. It's some sort of chalet in the middle of nowhere. Don't worry."

"I'm not worried about it." Just Jim. He sat up a little, and wished he hadn't. The pain was generally just numbing his fucking brains, and he was frustrated enough that he could see why Jim was shooting pigeons.

"Of course not."

"Of course not what?" Jim pushed past her, pistol held loosely in his hand.

Christ, fucking Christ. He held his right hand out for the gun, jaw set hard as he could manage. "Stuck in the middle of nowhere and leaving me feeling like the goddamned fucking sane one. Do you know how wrong that is? I want my gun back."

The twitch of expression over Jim's face was somewhere between amusement and suspicion. "You won't let me hold it? For just a moment longer?"

"I think you've held it long enough." He twitched his fingers, making a hand it over gesture with his open palm.

That little moue of disappointment did not move him. Not in the least. "I can't hold it just a bit longer?"

"No." He was fairly sure that it was pain and not desperation that cracked his voice, fingers still outstretched and waiting. There was another long moment of hesitance, and then Jim placed it in his palm. He snatched it close, ejected the clip, and unloaded the chamber in record time before sliding the mess under the sheets out of Jim's sight. Fucking cunt. It was a relief to have it out of the way, out of sight, and to have those dark eyes in the room again. The pain was sneaking up on him, and he was going to have to take something.

He didn't want to take anything. If he did, then he would end up asleep and god only knew what would happen.

"Ow, you bitch!"

He almost managed a laugh as the woman walked Jim forward, already wobbling on his knees, and pushed him onto the bed with Bastian. It jarred the fuck out of his leg, the one that hurt worst, and for a moment he just had to swallow and keep breathing. Christ on a pogo stick. 

But Jim was finally going to be asleep. If he slept, then Bastian could sleep, and it would at least save him from worrying every time he managed to wake up... for a while.

"You can thank me later."

Yeah.

Later.

* * *

After he'd slept, and slept. And slept, Jim seemed to be settling back down to one of his usual rhythms. Rhythms that included sleep, and quiet moments, and eating things that weren't candy bars. Angry as fuck, but Bastian was angry as fuck now that he was awake more, in pain more, and looking towards getting better. The sliced mess of his left shoulder was much better, and the wiry fucking asshole doctor had said he was bringing around a wheelchair.

Still, it was good to be awake, because he could poke through voicemail and texts that weren't obscenities from Jim, check email and see what pieces had fallen through the proverbial cracks and work out who could take care of them in the Empire.

The angry voicemail from his sister was a little special, though.

_"Sebastian, you complete_ fucktard _, where in holy hell are you? You've not called or written in days, and I am beginning to believe that you must be dead. You had, in fact, better be dead when I get hold of you. Otherwise, whatever the case, I am going to kill you. Horribly. Painfully. With very sharp objects."_ There was the faintest of sounds when she disconnected.

Right. He eyed the phone for a moment, then flicked over to her number. He wasn't really even sure what time of day it was, never mind what time zone he was in personally, but he could try. One ring, two rings...

_"And just where in the fuck have you been?"_ He wondered if she had been sleeping, but he was almost afraid to ask. The sound of her fear and her anger told him everything he needed to know anyway.

He swallowed, and closed his eyes. "Hello to you, too. I had a run in with the older Holmes."

_"What."_ That wasn't a question. Shit. _"Explain to me what that means, exactly."_ Like she didn't have some sort of idea of what it might mean.

"Broke both my legs, fucked up my knees, hacked open my shoulder. I've really only gotten conscious recently." He glanced around the quietly empty room. "So, I get to transition to a wheelchair today."

Her breath gusted out audibly, and he felt like a bastard. _"And that complete nutjob didn't bring you to me?"_

"I think we're in Switzerland." So no, clearly not. Still, it was better that Jim was out of the country, unable to wreak immediate havoc. Maybe Jim had given that some thought in the movement, where Bastian had narrowed down to him and Jim and no other fucking thoughts in his head. "Given who did it, I think getting out of the country was a good thing."

_"Next time, tell that crazy jackass to fucking call me."_ Concern always did translate into bloody pissed off for Brina. _"And I want him to send me your medical records."_

"Is it a good sign that you've upgraded to calling him a crazy jackass?" He asked it lightly, before carrying on, "And the records are sort of a mess. I don't think the doc here's the sort to keep records other people can find."

That was a truly remarkable number of curse words. He wasn't even sure that he knew the middle three. _"Then you get him to write up something and if he lies, shoot him."_

He snorted into the phone, switching ears. "Let's just say his predecessor's moved on after one leg went compartment syndrome. Honestly, I'll be all right. It's just been... They wanted Jim incapacitated. They'll regret it."

_"He'll regret it worse if I get hold of him first. And you're going to regret it because no one called me. Next time, I expect some sort of method in place so that I know these things without having to rely on the good graces of your partner."_ The scathing fury was sort of scary.

"It's not like he's really holding it together real well right now. Got nothing to do with graces." Bastian was pretty sure that wouldn't actually help. It was one of those things that worried his sister, that Jim was completely fucking nuts. Bastian sat up a little straighter in the bed, holding onto the phone pretty reliably. "Which is why Holmes did this."

_"He broke you apart, just to distract your...."_ The derogatory terms were clearly sitting on the tip of her tongue.

"You'd think he'd... Stop. Leave Jim alone, after the last time he got his attention." And that'd gone very badly for Jim. Mostly, Bastian wanted to be back home, rattling around the city, the world, causing chaos. Anywhere but in bed, all fucked up and contemplating a wheelchair.

_"You would think he would have better sense than to piss off a man who made his brother jump off of a building. I suppose he didn't consider the idiocy of pissing off an emergency physician."_ Never mind that Brina probably knew just as many people as Mycroft Holmes. Social ruin would very likely be as bad a thing as parts of London blowing up around him.

He gave a quiet laugh, more of a snort, cradling the phone. "No, I sincerely doubt he did. Please don't do anything. I'd like to keep you all out of this."

The sound of her snort was audible even over the phone. _"Do you think I'm stupid enough to let him know anything? Really, Sebastian."_

"Brina." He swallowed, and didn't look around the room again. "I don't want you to be a target. And I know he knows about you, he knows a lot. Let's not add you to it."

_"Worry about your knees. And whatever other joints are clearly disastrously fucked up. And get me the bloody notes."_

"Right. I'll do that. I'll let you go now, all right? Need to give this piece of shit a whirl, see what the hell Jim's getting up to." Grit his teeth and fucking get on with his life.

_"If you die and he doesn't call me, you only think you've seen pissed off, Bastian."_ Yeah. His sister was very unhappy.

"Yeah, because the brain damaged manic depressive psychotic is really going to keep a great hold of things if I get worse." He held the phone out for a moment, and fuck it. Just hung up, because he really didn't have the cycles for that just then. He'd call and apologize later. In a week.

Hopefully she wouldn't kill him.

Then again, it was his sister.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Fantastic. Sullivan. Where Malgueret wandered off to, he couldn't say, but she was pervasive and completely annoying.

"I'm thinking about getting in the wheelchair and taking it for a very slow spin." He pushed the sheets back a little, keeping his phone in reach.

She tilted her head, crooked mouth pressing together into a thin line. "With what? You can't push the wheels." True. It was also true that if he didn't get out of the bed, he was very likely going to die of utter and complete boredom in the next few minutes.

"I can too." He gave a grimace, and moved his arms. "Fuck, at least let me fucking try. I'm going to go crazy with boredom soon."

"Oh, for god's sake." She threw up her hands, clearly annoyed. "Darius! Get in here!"

Well, at least he hadn't scarpered off entirely, nor had Jim killed him and tossed him into the same shallow grave as Hainesworth. He supposed that was a relief. After all, someone had to get his very illegal pain medications somehow.

It was almost a shame he hadn't just taken Bastian to a hospital. He might've already been on the way to discharge by then, though he didn't know if Jim would've been able to maintain any persona long enough for it to work.

Probably not. He wasn't that great at it these days.

"What the hell is..." Outstanding. Just fantastic. Both of them. "Christ. One day, the two of you will be the death of me."

"Help get me into the wheelchair," he ordered, jaw tight, "Or it might just be today. I'm not crazy yet, but I'm getting there."

Malgueret heaved a frustrated breath before he started moving. "Fuck's sake. This is what I get for agreeing to work with complete lunatics."

"And killing your first wife and letting Jim get the photos." Bastian shifted to swing his legs over the edge of the mattress. It hurt, but movement felt so good in a sharp way. "Fuck, who takes photos of a crime scene?"

"That fucking lunatic." Malgueret scowled. "I only killed her a bit. She was annoying as fuck, and I never liked her."

Sullivan's thin shoulders shrugged. "I killed her a lot more."

"Right, then get off your high horses about lunacy," Bastian muttered, gesturing at Malgueret to get over there already. It worked out pretty well, because he did move, got into position, and that was quite a bit more helpful. His bitchy assistant moved to his other side.

They were shifting him into the wheelchair pretty carefully all things considered. "Oh, neither of us was crazy at the time. Horribly sane, more like."

"That makes it worse. At least I'm having a damn good time when I'm doing horrible things." He settled into it, as upright as he could manage, putting his hands on the wheels testingly,

"Don't even _think_ about it. Sully, I left things a disaster in the other room. I will take him out of here and let him sit with Moriarty for a bit."

"Do I even want to know what's in the other room?" He still put his hands on the wheels, and gave himself a slow push forward. Fuck, yes, that hurt, but it was a good sharp hurt. It was a still alive and that shoulder's fucked hurt.

"None of your business." Probably something Jim had them concocting. Who the hell knew, and he was tired just from getting out of bed, never mind actually rolling himself anywhere. He would find out, eventually. "Come on, then."

It was just good to move a little, and maybe see another spot in the building. See what Jim was up to, other than busy on email, and probably working on five computers at once.

Leaving their suite of rooms proved that they were, in fact, in something like a hotel. Maybe. It looked like a converted house of some sort, and from the look of things they were taking up the better part of a floor.

That was fine. He gave a push every once in a while, but Malgueret mostly propelled him along, and it was a relief. Everything hurt, but god it was fucking good to be out of that damn bed.

"So." The pleasure of being allowed to leave the room was severely cut into by Malgueret bothering to speak at all. "Do you think that perhaps you can convince him not to kill us? In the end? I ask because he seems more unsettled than usual. No wonder, trying to blow himself to kingdom come."

"Yeah, well. That's in my general interests, Jim surviving." And the rest of them with him. Well, no. No, Malgueret was nothing to him, nor Sullivan. It didn't matter to him, just that Jim survived and carried on. The fact that they had, on occasion, been vitally necessary to that was as good a reason as any to keep them living.

The wheelchair turned, and there was a door leading out to a wide walk on the roof, carefully railed and clearly occupied by the occasional pigeon. He supposed it was nice to see where Jim had been out shooting the damned things.

Still, all in all not good. Good was Jim settled in and working the world, taking it apart, bad was him rattling around on a fucking rooftop. "Jim?" Christ.

"He was just here." Even Malgueret seemed uncomfortable about all of it. "Where the fuck...?"

"I swear to fucking god, if you've dragged me up here to push me off the roof, I'm taking your scrawny dog fucking ass with me." He twisted a little, looking up over his shoulder at the bastard.

Jim's laughter was sudden, startling, and it made him turn sharply, to the point that it hurt. "Dog fucking ass. How charming."

"Asshole," Malgueret muttered. "Cocksucker."

"Not recently," Bastian deadpanned, shifting with some little amount of pain again. "You can leave now, Malgueret."

That smirk was some kind of relief. "Or you could stay. I feel sure Colonel Moran has undoubtedly brought in a firearm of some sort." It wasn't as though the odds weren't very good for just that thing. He had one tucked at the small of his back, in fact.

He just really didn't trust fucking pajama bottoms with that sort of thing long term. "Not related to my wanting this asshole to get back to not being here."

The physician threw up a hand in irritation. "Fine, fine. If he overexerts himself and keels over, it's your own fault."

Every flirty-eyed look from Jim was meant, it was just that it might well be followed by a vicious look that could pin almost anyone to the nearest flat surface. "Don't worry, Malgueret. I won't do anything that might interfere with your patient's best interests."

Out of his own self interest. Hell, Bastian was probably just going to sit there, but it was still good to feel and smell and see fresh air, the outdoors. He usually spent a lot of time kicking around outside, so it was good just to enjoy it for a moment. "Should I be fucking concerned about the pigeon obsession?"

The door shut behind him, and Jim moved closer, one hand waving in a circle that likely seemed explanatory. "I was thinking of stuffing a few. Setting them around your bedroom, just to see."

"The calibre of my guns are a bit much to leave anything intact. Birdshot exists for a reason." He reached out with his right hand, snatched at Jim's wrist when he got close enough. Because he could, because he was still alive, and did everything Jim told him as long as Jim wasn't at risk.

He came easily, one hand pulling the brake on the wheels so that he could settle against the arm of the chair. "If I sit on you, you'll scream. While I might ordinarily find that exciting, I need for you to be functional more than I need to enjoy your pain."

"Context is important." He smirked up at Jim, who was probably enjoying being relatively tall for once. No reason to take the wind out of that enjoyment. "So, I'm conscious and semi-mobile. What can I do?"

That assessing look was constant and steady. It implied that Jim was a great deal better than Bastian knew he was. "Get better. Start planning."

"Working on it. The planning part is always more fun with you in the room." Not on the roof. Not trying to take out pigeons. He was about five steps from rigging a slingshot for staples if he had to.

"So I'm you're muse." The way he drawled out the word was mocking, but his eyes were bright all the same.

Right, his psychotic fucking muse. He exhaled, head tipped back carefully to look at Jim perched on the arm of his chair. "Yeah. Right, maybe you are."

That clearly pleased the fuck right out of him. "Mmmm, and I'm a good muse." Very good, in fact, and that... yes, that was indeed a hand stroking down his chest. Right. That and his face were one of the few places that Mycroft hadn't fucked up.

He slid a hand behind Jim's back, just steadying himself. "We could go inside, boot up a couple of laptops. Order you some birdshot. Crack a window for the fresh air effect, and start planning."

"Are you trying to seduce me off of my rooftop?" It sounded suspicious as hell, but it also sounded pleased. Smug, and just as it should be. The world slotted into place exactly right, and suddenly he could breathe.

"Is it working, or should I try a different technique?" He kept his position, watching Jim, hoping that things would stay right there, right where he could breathe and everything felt balanced. Felt right.

Jim seemed to consider that, all serious mien and narrowed gaze. "Perhaps. But only because I'm bored." Ha.

"Good enough." He kept his arm looped around Jim's waist, smirking at the narrowed gaze. "Go on, you can laugh at me while I try to make this thing move." Malgueret might kill him in his sleep for the attempt, but even with the pain, it might feel good just to move, to make the attempt.

That spark of thought was exactly what made him hot, most of the time. "If you fuck up your shoulder, I will have you put down. Like a horse."

Fantastic.

"Duly noted, sir." He laughed, and gave Jim a faint nudge. "Might be easier if you get off the chair before I try."

"Could be." Very well could be, and he moved away from Bastian, slipping his hands into his pockets and watching him seriously. "Well? Any time now."

He knocked the brake off carefully, and started to wheel himself backwards. It was almost easier than going forward, and he kept the motions short and agonizingly slow.

"Oh, fuck's sake." That sounded annoyed. "Hurting you is more fun than watching. I'm miserable at watching." That was pretty true. He could watch so long as it was a complete disaster that he had set in motion; watching someone else's disaster was something else altogether.

Watching a disaster Mycroft Holmes had inflicted was probably worse than usual. Bastian pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth and exhaled. Still, he managed to get it turned around, using his right arm. "You could help."

"I could." He was still just standing there, watching him sort of like other people might watch a bug in a glass jar. It took several long seconds before he stepped forward and reached for the handles on the wheelchair.

Good enough. Bastian kept trying to move forward himself, but Jim had started to push him forward as if working out that the wheelchair wasn't going to bite him. It was a relief for his arm. 

If everything ever really went to hell, and he survived, Bastian supposed with a bit of amusement that he could try to get a job as a police hostage negotiator. He was already really good at talking people down.

* * *

He wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that their flight back to England and all of Jim's manic fucking joy at being able to put things into motion had been crushed down by two days and counting of oppressive headaches. By the time they got into the hired car, and headed to a new flat -- because Mycroft Holmes had been able to pick him up from near the last one, so clearly that was a burnt location -- Jim's fingers were pressing into his own temples hard enough that Bastian had finally given in trying to ignore it and pulled Jim's hand down hard.

"Stop it."

"I'll stop it when I feel like it!" He was snarling, and he jerked his hand loose, striking out hard enough with the other one that it nearly made Bastian lose his temper. Why he resisted taking something for it when it was clearly debilitating was anyone's guess, the stubborn asshole.

"You're making it worse." He fished into his coat pocket for painkillers, dumping two into his hand to just. Offer them to Jim. There was a time to hit Jim back, and a time not to hit him back, and he'd worked for the man long enough to know those lines.

"I am making it better!" The fact that he wasn't, that he was lying through his pearly white veneers, made things even more annoying. Bastian had once thought that he couldn't get any more irritating.

He had been wrong.

It was fine when he, personally, was all fucked up, but when Jim made his own shit worse... Bastian closed his eyes, jaw clenched while he held the two pills with his fingertips. He took a deep breath, then twisted to shove them down Jim's throat.

He was fairly certain the asshole driving would have considered it assault if he hadn't been one of the people for whom Jim had played consulting criminal. Luckily enough, that wasn't the case, so he put up with the yelling and the struggling, ignored Bastian's yelp when Jim bit the shit out of him, and said not a word when Jim started choking on the fingers.

Stubborn little bastard.

He pulled his hand back when teeth let go of his knuckles, wiping the spit off in his trouser leg while Jim gagged and finally swallowed, seconds before he punched Bastian in the stomach. It left him winded and oddly triumphant, twisting to try to pin Jim back against the seat back.

"Son of a...!" Yes, yes, but he had bitten fingers and a hardon, and Jim's mouth tasted like copper and iron and blood, and this? This was so good. So much better than the way things had been. He'd hated being considered infirm by Jim, incapable of playing the way they did. He needed the feeling of Jim's struggle, and then hands against his shoulders, clutching him tight, pulling him closer, the way Jim bit the hell out of his tongue because he was sadistic and a mean little fuck.

Hands fumbled at his belt, at the catch to his trousers, pulling at them with a desperation that made him mumble fervently underneath his breath, husky and deep. They had fucked on the plane, they had fucked before they left, but somehow this clearly signified that he was better, that he was okay, that they could be themselves. Who knew, who cared? So long as it was like this, not him.

This was like it had been, and he was so hard that he only had to twist a little, left knee howling at him as Jim managed to get his cock out of his pants, while Bastian shoved Jim's stupid skinny hipster shit trousers down off his hips to the back of his thighs. It hurt, and he wasn't sure if his tongue was bleeding or not. Something about that made it even hotter, made him rut against Jim's hip while Jim's fingers clutched at his shoulders, pushing and pulling, shoving at him in something like desperation.

It was perfect. His head probably felt like it was two steps from exploding, and he clearly didn't give a damn. He was too busy writhing against Bastian, which made his knees and legs hurt like a motherfucker, and Bastian didn't give a damn, either. He had Jim panting against his neck, the press of teeth against his skin while they ground together. It was beautiful pain, and he needed it, needed to hear Jim sound as close to submitting as he ever came.

Even when he gave in, it came with teeth, and the sure knowledge that he was only doing it because he wanted to do it. "I'm going to fuck you blind as soon as possible."

"Promises." He shuddered, almost there, still fighting back, keeping Jim pinned to the back of the seat. The best part was that the pain pills would probably kick in by the time they got there.

"Blind," Jim groaned, rocking hard and steady and with a remarkable amount of intent. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

He laughed, Jim's hair pressed against the side of his face while he kept thrusting, giving perfect counterpoint. But all he needed was to get himself off. Jim was focused on himself, too much. That was his life, their lives, it was how things were, and shit. Fuck, shit, fuck, that was... that was good. That was so good, and he panted, the slam of his hips going ragged and then it was there, right there, perfect. Just perfect.

When he got himself together, Jim was cursing and slamming his bony wrists against Bastian's shoulders. "Fucking finish me, you dick!"

He slid his hand down Jim's pants, getting a hold of his dick tightly, giving Jim the sort of pain he needed. He pressed his mouth against Jim's neck, leaving sucking marks while he got Jim off, let him push into his hand until he was moaning, leg wrapping around Bastian's calf and making his knee ache, the pain rising sharply. When Jim finally came, he choked back sounds, leg flexing so hard that it made Bastian groan.

It took him a moment to shift, rolling to get himself back into a sitting position. Because he needed to get his own weight off of his legs before the pain turned from pleasant to completely crippling. "Fuck."

"Yeah. Fuck." Fuck, and Jim sounded blurry, off. He reached up and rubbed his temples again, mumbling under his breath for a moment. "I hate those pills."

"I know." He started to absently zip up, taking a gulp of air. Yeah, tongue was bleeding and that was nice in a way. Leeched copper into his mouth with every breath. "Just fucks me up that you're still hurting."

The shift of his body was slow, lethargic. "Yeah, well. Can't say I like it, either."

Jim was still close to his side, muscles still twitching a little unevenly, thigh up against Bastian's. "Yeah. Good thing we agree on that. So, quiet night in, fuck the city tomorrow?"

The clear enjoyment of that thought was met with heavy-lidded eyes and a slow stretch. "Fuck the city tomorrow. Fuck the _Holmes_ brothers." God. That was too much, and the thought that this time might end with Jim completely interrupted, unable to go back to his regular kind of crazy, was terrifying.

He was still going forward with it.

Bastian broke out a cigarette after that, lit one, took a few puffs, surrendered it to Jim when the other man took it out of his mouth, and lit a second one for himself. The driver didn't say a thing, though he likely wanted to do so.

"We'll start tomorrow. With the Eye." It was all about terrifying the populace now, distracting everyone from the fact that Jim planned to put Mycroft Holmes into a specially designed part of hell.

It was a beautifully arranged plan, one that Bastian was mostly proud of. They'd had plenty of time to plot and try things, and model out the results, plenty of time to work it over. If his sister ever found out what was going on, he would probably die violently by her hand. Brina would never value any one life enough that killing a hundred people would be an acceptable answer. It was for him. Always had been, and Jim had just made that part of him a hundredfold worse. He closed his eyes for a moment, just breathing smoke, relaxing until the vehicle came to a stop at their new flat.

"Come on. My head's a fucking travesty, and I need a bath." Never mind that Bastian probably did as well. Both of them were a disaster waiting to happen, in an almost literal sense right now. It didn't matter if they bathed because in a matter of hours, they would be terrorizing all of London. Clean terrorists were probably not on the list of expectations most people had, but there it was. Even criminals had a preference for clean or dirty.

Bastian was rather fond of soapy skin.

They both piled out, and he fished the key out of Jim's pocket for him because he was starting to go murky and tired. "Did you do the creepy same floor plan as the last three places?"

"There is nothing creepy about my floor plan!" Of course he would object. Never mind that it was completely creepy as hell. There was familiarity and then there was overkill. Jim had never been able to tell the difference between the two.

Bastian nudged the door open with a roll of his eyes, and oh fuck, yes, there was the same sofa, same TV, same everything in his life. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"When I can, absolutely." That was completely understandable. The fact that he yawned after that, well. It was good that tonight wouldn't be one of those nights.

They'd already finished themselves off in the car, and now Jim was sated and drugged, easy to walk into the flat, lock the door behind them. Nudge him towards the bedroom that was just, annoyingly, like the last three, helping him out of suit clothes that fit too well. "I'll run the shower."

That earned him a smirk only, and he knew damned well Jim would be curled up when he came back from the bathroom, either asleep or pretending to be. "Sure."

Either way, he could prop him up under the water, knee killing him or not. He stripped off on the way to the bathroom, toeing out of shoes and socks while he checked and found body wash and shampoo and Jim's fifty billion pounds of hair care product.

Honestly. Who needed that much product in their hair?

His prediction about Jim proved to be true. He was out cold, draped across a bed that was ridiculously large, face buried in a pillow. Not unexpected. It was always possible he was faking it, but they would go through the steps all the same. The difference now was that it killed him, a revenge worse than physio to get Jim onto his back, to finish stripping him. Still out cold, and maybe just he needed to give the shower a miss.

At the very least, Jim would have to miss it. He wasn't up to carrying him around even if he wanted to be able to do it. What he wanted and what he was capable of doing, well. They were completely different things these days.

Soon they'd overlap again, but not just yet. He headed back for the shower, and took his time. Hot water always felt good, whether he had company that was trying to fuck him into the wall or not. Soap was good, too, after a too-long plane ride, and hell, he didn't have anything against shampoo. He left the bathroom feeling better, still sore, but better, carrying a wet washcloth that he could drop on Jim's head.

In the end, he didn't even do that -- just wiped him clean and curled into bed next to him, warm and grateful to be back in London. Sixteen, seventeen more hours, and the entire city would be running, screaming and afraid and unable to figure out what to do with themselves. It might not be enjoyable but it would make him feel deeply accomplished, and that was something he had been missing for quite some time.

* * *

Come the morning, it was all business. Everything was clean and precise and beautiful to Bastian, because there were plans to execute and he loved a mission. Loved having a purpose, loved doing what Jim wanted him to do, even if it meant watching from a good vantage point as their boys placed the explosives, set the charges, and he called out their movements through the earpieces, warned them when people were watching. Controlled it all with one earpiece, a channel switch, and a spotting scope, while Jim paced and muttered to himself in their makeshift OP.

It was a beautiful plan. Exquisite, and they had others, Jim had others. Ideas and notions and a truly ridiculous amount of weaponry that made him content just to consider it. The only thing better than that was the idea that finally, finally, Holmes would get what was coming to him.

Soon. Apparently a fall hadn't been enough, but that was fine, they'd all regret what they'd done, declaring war on Jim like that, making everything go sideways when they'd least expected it. He wouldn't let it happen again, and Jim's constant pacing-moving-talking-threatening was a comfort. It meant he was there, and they were there, and that things were exactly the way they should be. Together. Safe as their lives could be.

Seconds from everything going up into fire and death, and Bastian watching it all. Jim's excited pacing behind him as he waited, waited and timed it, was almost better than sex. Bastian watched as the Eye started to get busy, a familiar pattern of life, and did one last set check with his men before setting the trigger time. 

Or at least, that had been the hope -- but the hard screech of static and distortion made him jump upright because that was something he was familiar with, something that made his heart pound while he jerked upright from his position back from the window. "Run. Run, Jim -- run!"

There were ingrained reactions; they trained, not because Jim wanted to so much as that he knew that Bastian's insistence made sense. That sometimes reaction time would be the only thing they had going for them. At the first word, Jim was moving, and Bastian was right behind him.

Interference meant someone was blocking signals, which meant they knew they were there, which meant they were fucked. They were being played with, and all he could do was run, hurrying Jim forward down the stairs. He heard boots coming up towards them, grabbed Jim's shoulders and yanked him into the nearest room. Ordinarily, he would be cursing, screaming, and having a fit from hell. In this case, he was silent, vibrating from head to toe with tension and rising adrenalin. Any second now, there would be someone there to try and take them apart, and they both knew it. Three seconds, and both of them had guns in their hands then, even if Bastian didn't want for him to have one.

It didn't matter. This was the end point, even if he was jamming the fuck out of the trigger in the hopes that some smartass had turned the signal jammer off already or he'd gotten a clear angle, but his ear piece, filled with static, told the story for him. "Nice knowing you, Jim." The first door he'd put between them was getting kicked down, and then there was a pause.

"Get down, get down!"

Down, and he shoved Jim under a table before he started moving, trying to distract them, draw fire. Shit, fuck, damn, god, something here was seriously fucking fucked.

The flashbang that some intrepid officer whipped into the room made him stagger, made him glad he'd hidden Jim as best as he could, because his eyes whited out for a moment, sound muted and warped and someone was pulling his hands behind his back while he fought like hell.

Motherfuckers.

How could they have known? How? Jim might be fucked up but he was solidly brilliant. They hadn't made any mistakes. They hadn't done anything wrong, and motherfuckers. Motherfuckers, all of them, and Bastian got one hand loose and on his pistol. He waved it, twisting to try to clip the head of the person behind him, and he connected, pulled his arm back enough to fire at the man when someone kicked him hard in the back. His vision was just starting to faintly clear, and that was enough to try to roll, get off a shot. He was pretty sure he winged air and nothing else from the lack of noise, but the sharp shout that followed made him go still.

"Drop the weapon, we have your partner!"

And Jim, Jim was silent. Jim was usually laughing or howling by then, or screaming curses, and nothing. He was never silent, never quiet, not in Bastian's experience. Jim always had something to say, even if it was only something sarcastic or hateful or howling with anger.

He didn't want to let go. He didn't want to give in, he wanted to do something, to fix this fucking problem, and there was no way he could do that. There was nothing to fix because somebody had caught both of them, and this could only end badly.

Bastian started to move to his knees, carefully setting down the gun. He could see one officer kitted out in full protective gear, hauling Jim out from behind the table. Jim wasn't moving, his head lolling as they hauled him across the floor by his suit-jacket over towards Bastian. He blinked his eyes hard, trying to clear his vision. No, that was still Jim, still unconscious, blood at his temple in a trickle that shouldn't be so frightening. It wouldn't be, maybe, if things weren't already so... so off. So bad, so wrong, and he was going to kill Mycroft Holmes. One day, eventually, he was going to watch the egg-shaped roundness of that head explode all over everyone in a ten foot radius.

For the moment, he stayed still while they pulled his hands behind his back and just leaned in, watching Jim. His knuckles were busted, so at least he'd gone down with a fight, which almost made Bastian proud. He kept his jaw clenched, scanning the room -- not that an opportunity for escape meant anything if he had to leave Jim there. He wasn't going to, not after last time. He had worked too hard to find him, and then that bastard Holmes had let him go all on his own. God, Bastian hated him.

"I suppose you thought we wouldn't find out." The chill of fear shuddered through him despite his attempt not to allow it.

He looked up, despite the fear, focusing on his own anger. Not that facing off against the man last time had gotten him anywhere, but headbutting him had felt excellent. "That's. Generally the plan. You started this." He took Bastian apart, distracted Jim. Crippled his far reaching, brilliant concerns down to human level, mortal rages, by doing that, and that had been the point, to humble and ruin Jim more than to take the speed out of Bastian's step.

"Perspective is a very interesting thing, Colonel Moran. For example, you see this as something I have started. I know that it is something our dear Mr. Moriarty started quite some time ago. A very interesting man, James Moriarty. It does give some credit to nurture versus nature, don't you think?" Supercilious, smiling, smug. One of these days, Bastian was going to have the upper hand and he was going to do things to him that Mycroft Holmes would never, ever forget.

With any luck, he wouldn't survive to forget it, anyway.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to shift his posture to take his weight off of his fucked up knee. "Carl Powers. That was your brother's first try at a case, wasn't it? Didn't quite get it right. Think of all the trouble he would've saved the world if he had figured it out then." It wasn't as much of a knife-dig as it could've been, but Bastian wasn't just Jim's ever present heavy, wasn't just a thug. And Mycroft Holmes knew he knew too much. "I'm not going to argue nature versus nurture with you when you've got me handcuffed on my knees."

Those cold grey eyes looked him up and down steadily, thoughtfully, as if contemplating some sort of plan. Who the fuck knew. "Once we've taken Mr. Moriarty, you may free Colonel Moran. Do leave him something to remember us by, hm? I believe the knowledge that we have his... friend... will be enough to convince him that further attempts would be ill-advised."

"No, no, you can't, you -- its not worth anything, you're not going to get anything out of him!" He knew he sounded panicked, but Jim had handled it so well the last time because he'd been at peak form. He had been himself, he had been... okay, not sane exactly, but on the ball. He wasn't that way anymore; he was a half step off of it these days, and it scared the shit out of him.

That smile made him even more afraid. "At the very least, this will give me some measure of control over your behavior. That is worth something."

He moved on his knees closer to Jim, even if it wasn't going to help. "No, no. You -- this isn't going to work the way you want, it didn't work last time!" And he'd managed to cover pretty well for how not-well Jim was. If he was in custody, nothing could cover for that but Jim's own silence.

Please god, let him remain silent.

"But now I am aware of facts I did not possess last time. Now, I know that breaking you does not stop him; however, holding him might well stop you. We will see."

"No. I'll do anything to not..." Not have to find Jim again, because that had been hell all by itself, but to lose him? The worst part was that he was making the case for exactly what Mycroft wanted, but it wasn't like reverse psychology was going to work.

The way he leaned forwards was tempting, but he had clearly learned better than to get too close. "Exactly."

Bastian swallowed, shifting to see if he could get to his feet if he had to. Just ready, just in case. "I don't think you understand. He's not the James Moriarty who took on your brother."

That eyebrow cock made him sick to think of what he might be planning. "Oh? Well, then. That should make everything much easier."

"I will take you apart," Bastian growled, staying still. "I'll find him and then I'll take you apart, do you understand me?"

They were shuffling Jim out, slung over a big guy's shoulder in a fireman's carry as though it were nothing. The men holding onto Bastian's arms had a tight grip, and his knees were killing him, his shoulder was screaming, and he was going to come un-fucking-glued. "I suppose we will just have to see."

Fuck, fuck fuck. He shifted, straining as he leaned forward, still watching Jim being taken out, hearing the officer head down the stairs. Fuck. "I will take you apart! You bastard! I'll kill you all!"

All of them. All, he would hunt down scarred-burned-fucked-up Molly Hooper and he would find John Watson and he would uncover whatever rabbit hole Sherlock Holmes had slid into and he would cut them all down to the bone. Slice and tear and rip them apart and he wondered if Holmes could see it in him. Knew that a man with any sense, any ability to understand people, would know what he was considering and would kill him now.

He jerked, felt his shoulder go, go right out of the fucking socket which was pretty horrifying, but he still rushed Mycroft because clearly the man had no fucking clue. And that was his damn problem. He would never know, never be able to tell, how he got loose from the hands holding him. All he knew was that he did, and his knees were killing him, his entire body was an agony, and he was going to kill the bastard _with his teeth_. Because all he had was one thing, one thing to live for, and Mycroft fucking Holmes wasn't going to take it from him. He managed to tackle the man, and maybe it would've been all right if someone had just shot him. Maybe it would have been all right for so many reasons, but the last thing he felt was the slam of something hard against the back of his head, and the world went black around him.

* * *

He hated waking up after head injuries.

Hated waking up injured, anyway, which was something he was too fucking used to of late. Everything felt sharp and sluggish at the same time, and he was lying on his back. The world was all dark colors and throbbing pulse, his head flaring into agony with each beat. He was pretty sure he was alone, and when his pulse pounded again, he managed somehow to roll over and puke.

Fuuuuck.

For a few minutes, everything washed away in the thread of agony and nausea. If he were lucky, he would be dead when it was all said and done. If he were unlucky, he'd aspirate on his own vomit, which wasn't the sort of death he wanted after the life he'd lived, so he managed to focus on breathing through it, keeping his head up, or. He wasn't sure what he was doing, but breathing through it. Surviving meant he might be able to get Jim out. Might be able to find him. Had to be able to find him, because he couldn't. This wasn't... He couldn't. That was all, he couldn't, and he fumbled around with immense effort, finally getting his hand into a pocket. His phone was still there, and he worked its way out slowly, infinitely slowly. Every motion made him want to puke again, and so it was a daunting task.

He managed to get it out of his pocket, and just laid there for a moment, breathing through it. He could smell building, familiar building, so they'd left him, where? Same place they'd caught them, which was classy. He might even still have a get away car staged nearby.

When he finally raised his phone, his hands were shaking so badly that he nearly didn't manage to fumble his way through opening the lock screen. Emergency calls were still an option, but he couldn't remember his sister's phone number worth a shit, and calling emergency was not an option.

He could, however, thumb his way over to his quick contacts and mash one button. Let it ring, his hands falling in closer to his face because yeah, he just needed to hear, to speak. He needed not to die there.

_"Sebastian. It is ridiculously late in the evening. Tell me that you realize that I am an hour from being on call, it is a forty-five minute drive, and I've not yet put on mascara."_ Why was it that she answered the phone that way every time? Or almost every time, anyway.

It had been mid day when it had all gone wrong. "Hhnnh." Fuck, fuck. He inhaled hard, trying to clear his lungs. Just needed to keep breathing. Maybe everything was funny because he had a collapsed lung? It felt horrible. What the fuck had they done? "S. Sry. Can. Not."

_"Sebastian?"_ That panicked sound, it was, he didn't like hearing her sound that way. _"Bastian, where are you?"_

Like he knew, exactly. Could tell. They... if he was still in the same place, maybe, but hadn't he put the location app on her phone? Maybe. Maybe, but he couldn't remember, exactly.

He inhaled hard enough, choked, and slammed the back of his hand against the floor hard. "Eye. The Eye. We." Breathing. He just needed to breathe, fingers stretching and clutching at the floor because it didn't help but it did help him hold on. "Took 'im."

_"What? Took.. You're at the Eye. The Eye? London? I've... let me, how far away are you? What's wrong?"_

He was nodding, which was the most fucking stupid thing ever, and it made his head swim, colors going wild again. Bastian closed his eyes. "N't. Breathe. 's hurts. Holmes." Again. And he had Jim, he fucking had Jim, and that gleam in his fucking eyes made him take another hard breath. "Help."

_"Tell me how, Basty. Tell me how to find you. Tell me something that I can, that I can use."_

Something she could use. Something she could use because he could exhale, inhale, and Jim was missing. He needed to find Jim. "Phone app. Tracking. 'm out. The Eye. Up stairs." It wasn't perfect, wasn't even close to that. There would be guess work and, and she probably wouldn't be able to find him. Just thinking about it made him queasy, made him shudder, and that made everything go away for a while. Maybe a long while, because it was so quiet when he managed to open his eyes again, and he remembered it being louder. Maybe.

Just a little louder. So it was later still, then. Later still and quiet, the Eye closed, the people gone. His phone had turned off, conversation ended, still clutched close to his face with no warming glow. It was probably time to call emergency, be done with it. His sister would end up trying the same anyway, wouldn't she? She was a doctor, not. Not a whole ER.

He needed to get up, out of the vomit pool, anyway. Needed to move, try to make his way back out of whatever building he was in so that maybe somebody could find him. Maybe Sabrina could find him, only his entire body felt so heavy he could never manage it. The best he could do was to roll over slowly, carefully, until he was at least further away.

That they'd taken the handcuffs off wasn't much of a good sign, just that they'd incapacitated him pretty well. He managed to get to his knees, still struggling, pushing past the blinding sharps because there was a texture he knew to it. That edge of everything texture, that, _please not yet, please,_ feeling because he'd been there when everything had warped with dust and pain and the shock of it and he'd been sideways in a vehicle he'd never practiced escaping out of, his driver's torso on him.

The dark did his short movement attempt no favors. He managed to smack into a wall in his aborted movements, and it sent him toppling. Time passed, and then he opened his eyes again. It was still quiet, but he had the feeling that dawn was probably approaching by now. Maybe.

His chest hurt, and his fingers felt numb, but that time he managed to get his phone on, managed to thumb to dial emergency. That'd have to do, that, no one was coming. No one was coming and he couldn't focus, couldn't move past the pain to do more than hope he could manage a connection. He needed to live long enough to make Mycroft fucking wish he'd killed him, that was all.

Just. Long enough.

"Basty?"

That was, that had to be his imagination. It had been hours, maybe? But it couldn't, Brina couldn't have found him.

He managed a groan, and shut his phone off again. Fuck emergency. If he was hallucinating that his sister was there, he was past their help anyway. "Sis?"

"Basty! Sebastian! I can't... I can't tell where you are, can you, could you....?"

Oh Christ. He knocked his boot against the floorboard, and hoped that made enough noise to be useful. Hoped, and she kept calling his name, enough to keep him awake. Ish. Sort of. Kind of, and somehow he lost track of things, lost track of everything, until the moment when a bright light stabbed him in the eye.

"Oh, god, what stupid thing have you two done now?"

It wasn't even worth answering, so he closed his eyes tight for a moment, just. Focused on breathing, on trying to move in a way that might actually be useful because she was sturdy, but not so much that she could move him. "'s took Jim."

"You clearly have one hell of a concussion. I'm going to get you into the car and get you to the nearest emergency. You're going to need several scans, one of your pupils is..." Blah blah blah. Something he couldn't follow, truthfully, and then she tried to pull him up and everything shifted in a very bad way.

Still, he was upright even if it was holding hard to the wall, the door jamb, fingers still knotted around his phone like a lifeline. Standing, he could stand, he could lean like that, though he was sure that his shoulder was dislocated because his other arm wasn't responding the way it needed to. Probably shouldn't have lunged at Mycroft as hard as he had, in retrospect, but there was a lot that seemed brighter in retrospect.

"Come on. Come on, Basty, the car is downstairs. I can, we can make it down there. We can. Come on." His sister was pulling at him, tugging, and the stumbling made him gag again, nausea welling thick and intense. "Oh, god."

He choked, gagged, coughed, but didn't throw up again. There probably wasn't anything left, and the sharp stabbing feeling in his chest made it worse, made another choke hitch up immediately and it was like fucking whooping cough, rolling in on itself for a moment before he jarred down three steps in more of a slip than a step. The fact that he caught himself with his good arm and it still hurt like blazes shouldn't have made him start to laugh.

Whatever the case, his sister seemed to be completely appalled. That just made him laugh harder, which meant it hurt more, which meant he was clearly fucked up at the moment. "Basty, don't... don't, oh, fuck." Fuck, and she was still holding on to him, trying to support him and carry him with her. It had to be a bitch of a thing to do.

They managed the steps that way -- slow, him half hysterical laughter, because he was sure, now that he was moving, that there was something wrong with his lungs and one arm and clearly, clearly his head, but it wasn't as bad as Jim, and Jim was _gone_. The fact that it was dimly daylight outside made him grimace, because just yesterday morning he'd been getting ready for the day with Jim. Packing up gear, watching Jim hum and pick out a necktie, his headache slept off enough to be functional. Fuck. Fuck, he was going to kill Mycroft Holmes. Twice.

Painfully.

"All right. Okay, in the car, I've a friend from medical school, I'll give him a call. I don't think we should try and make it home, and you clearly need more care than I can manage in the car. Oh, Basty, you're a mess."

"Mmhm." Yeah, yeah, he was a mess all right. He worked with her right until he was sitting again, searing pressure against his back enough to make him slide right out of consciousness again.

* * *

Something was beeping.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Sebastian wondered if Jim had changed his goddamned text tone again. He did it purely to annoy him, and it made him want to hit something. Probably Jim.

The beeping carried on annoying, until he finally opened his eyes to look around. Almost immediately he wanted to swear, because he recognized too well the placid paint job and look of a hospital.

If it was fucking St. Bart's, he'd laugh himself sick. What cosmic joke was it if he had ended up there of all places?

Rolling his head to the side, he looked around and tried to remember why, exactly, he was there. The sight of his sister camped out in one of the extremely uncomfortable chairs made to encourage people to go home made him blink Now if he could just think of the reason he was there, and where Jim was, that would be good.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to clear them, looked at his sister again. "Hey." Oh, fuck, his voice sounded like shit, and it made his chest ache a little to talk. Still, no tube down his throat, that was always excellent.

Brina shifted, sitting up to look at him. The snaps and creaks and pops said more than anything about how long she had been there, and he probably would have felt bad about that if he could think at all. "Hey. You're awake."

"Yeah." Yeah, he was awake. He was awake and all fucked up. And Jim. Jim... Jim should've been there, but he wasn't surprised he wasn't there, which was bad. He blinked again, trying to focus, because Jim...

Jim was slung over someone's shoulder and disappeared out of sight.

Maybe it shouldn't have surprised him to find her hands pushing him back into the bed. "No. No. You're a complete mess. Your shoulder is... and your ribs, and your head..." Her voice cracked. "You have to stop doing this kind of thing, Basty. You've been out for a couple of days."

"He took Jim." Which was the only thing that mattered, He didn't matter, Jim, Jim mattered. He had to get him out, he wasn't in any condition for Mycroft Holmes's shit. What the hell was he supposed to do, pretend to be a good upstanding citizen and they might eventually let Jim go?

He didn't know what to do.

"I, I know." Brina swallowed. "I, you said. I haven't been able to find him. I have asked. Jeremy is making inquiries, but there, there's been nothing."

He gave a rough laugh, lifting his right hand to cover his mouth. "Christ. Who the hell would you just walk up and ask?" It was absurd for him to even consider.

Ahhh, that expression was much more familiar, her lips compressed tightly. "It isn't as though he simply walked in and asked, Sebastian. Jeremy knows people, and they know people, and they have been discreet. I can't imagine where he could be, but we are trying. You've been sick, we've been here, I..." Oh. Oh, that was bad. Sabrina never _cried_ , there was no _crying_ , and she looked away as if that would hide the dampness there.

"Hey." He shook his head a little, trying to keep himself focused and in check because why was his sister crying? There wasn't anything to cry over. He knew where Jim might be, knew how to find the person who had him. It hadn't been a risk worth taking, last time, because the whole network had been so far under the radar that he couldn't risk it. Now he just didn't fucking care. But he wouldn't have anything to offer the man. 

He needed to think of something to offer.

"You were bleeding. You were.. They had to _drill a hole in your head_ to release the pressure, if I hadn't found you..." Oh, god. This was wrong in so very many ways.

He rubbed his hand over his jaw, closing his eyes again, just briefly. The light in the room was bizarrely painful, and he wondered if it was something lingering from the flash bang. "Don't think we should've ever come back to England."

"Idiot." Idiot, yes, and she reached out, snagged his hand and held it close. "I knew it would all catch up with you eventually. I hoped it wouldn't, but... I knew. I knew."

She'd been right. Still. It'd been a good year abroad, a decent stint back in London until Holmes the younger had shown up. Lots of, of good, enjoyable things in there. Things other people would never be able to say they'd even thought about doing, never mind having done. "Yeah. I knew, too. Just... Have to get Jim back."

"And tell me you will be medicating him. Swear to me, even if you have to grind it up and put it in his tea off and on all day. Tell me. When you find him, you will keep him under control, Sebastian. You will not let him put you in this situation ever again." She was dead serious about that, too.

He was fairly sure the laugh he gave was threaded with misery, as he clutched at her fingers. "Think I got the message this time. 's... You know how he's been." On decline. Stubborn and angry and on the decline, except he was Jim and even on a decline he was so fucking brilliant.

Amazing.

Completely fucking astonishing, and they were... they were who they were, that was the thing. He would have to do something, make some decision, but first he had to find Jim. If he didn't find him, there wouldn't be any point in considering what came next.

After he found Jim, he'd start considering what needed to be done. 

It just didn't help that his sister was looking at him with damp eyes and... right, hole in his head. That was a new level of seriousness, true, but she knew he was an obsessive fuck and Jim had been the focus of everything for so long. There wasn't any turning back from that.

He didn't know what to do. Where to start, or anything, and he was hurting, his eyes fluttering shut on him. He needed to be awake, and he wasn't ready for that yet. Not yet.

The worst part of being ill was losing time -- skipping and missing pieces of himself, of what he'd been doing. When everything snapped back into focus, his mouth tasted oddly like weak tea, and Brina was gone. Jeremy was the one in her place, flipping through something on his phone. Fuck. Network would've gone to shit again, he just knew it. There had to be a way to sunset the whole thing this time, quietly. Or at least, jettison the more dangerous-to-them portions of it. Small time swindles were always easier to arrange. "Hey. Day is it?"

"Tuesday. How are you feeling?" Jeremy's mouth quirked upwards in amusement. "I am reliably informed that you will lie in order to get out of the bed and that I am to strap you down if necessary. I can't imagine where I shall find the wherewithal to do so, but you know your sister. I dare not do otherwise."

Yeah, that was about the sum of it. Bastian closed his eyes for a moment. "You realize the only reason I didn't push you off that bridge at your stag night was because my sister would know it was me."

"And I'm extraordinarily grateful that your sister is just as terrifying to you as she is to me. You know, you didn't tell me how you're feeling." Jeremy had never seemed all that bright. It was probably the reason he did well in politics -- he seemed friendly and nice but he had a political acuity that was only scary when examined in retrospect.

It was a beautiful sort of front. Bastian tried for a smirk, watching Jeremy's carefully placid expression. "Disjointed. Need to get out of here to find Jim." Except everything felt like it wasn't quite catching, which was a little strange in his head.

"Richard, you mean." He leaned back, crossing one ankle over his knee. "Your father was still furious when he died. I can only imagine that knowing the truth would have tipped him into apoplexy." Jeremy shrugged. "It's been difficult to find information. I have a lead or three. We'll see what comes of them. You can't get out of bed yet in any case."

"I don't care. It isn't like the government doesn't know who's who." It felt, more than the last time Mycroft's men had had a go at him, like coming back from Afghanistan again. Everything felt distant and uninteresting, just bits of facts and observations as he watched Jeremy. There was a need to find Jim, to get him back, but past that... Past that there wasn't anything, and there were things he needed to do. "Which of you has my phone? If I'm stuck here, I can at least keep things up."

Jeremy's face grew serious. "Funny thing, that. They wiped everything except Brina's number. It's a clean slate."

Fuck. Just.... Fuck, because the computer was at their latest hidey hole, along with all of the backup phones. Clean slate. He wondered...

"I need you to go to my flat on Conduit street. Key's in my wallet, if it's still there. If not, kick the door down. I need any electronics we had, there are backups..." And backups of backups, but if they'd ferreted out the flat, then they'd probably gone for the backups, and maybe Mycroft had just said fuck it and started to disassemble it all. Christ, then it was going to be a game of how many layers deep the man had managed to find their contingency plans. There were always contingency plans, layer upon layer and then some. Even Bastian couldn't pull them apart entirely, and he wasn't stupid... at least not until he was compared to Jim.

"So basically you want to make me a party to your crimes." Jeremy mulled it, mien serious. "I'm afraid enough of your sister to try and get you what you want."

"Not party to my crimes. Just... it's my apartment. I'm stuck here, I'd like to see if my place has been robbed in addition to everything else." He rubbed at the edge of his jaw with his right hand.

That had ought to seem reasonable, hadn't it? "All right then. Have you an address?"

He rattled it off to the man, because, well. It wasn't as if it was anything to hide from Mycroft if they'd already taken the time to blank his phone and leave him just one number. He still knew most of his business contacts by heart, but the message was pretty impressively hard to misinterpret.

If he could make all of that disappear, he could make Jim disappear, too. Permanently.

It was funny, really. He already knew that Jim would burn down the world if things went too wrong. He just hadn't realized, not truly, that he would do the same thing.

The waiting was the hard part. Without Jeremy in the room to distract him, he dozed; his eyes wandered; he lost trains of thought that he didn't actually remember starting. The longer it took, the worse he knew the outcome was going to be. Maybe it was the distraction or the sleeping, maybe it really was just that bad. One way or the other, it stressed him right the fuck out, made him worry more and more with every waking moment, and they all seemed to stretch thin and long, beyond bearing.

By the time Jeremy walked back into the room, he didn't know what the hell to do except sit and worry and twitch.

"You look like hell."

"Was there anything left?" It was his fucking life he was trying to take an account of, his resources. Of course he looked like hell!

A bag settled on the bed, and his brother-in-law sat down beside him. "I thought perhaps you would prefer that I not go personally. After all. It was fairly intact, per the information I received while I was waiting for your things downstairs. Sabrina is making arrangements for everything to be moved somewhere else. Just in case."

He couldn't remember the last time he felt such bizarrely precise relief. "I think it's a safe just in case. Jesus." And for all that Jim couldn't create an app that could unlock every door, he could certainly encrypt their computers in a style that would make any data unrecoverable to anyone who tried to get in without knowing all of the steps.

"Yes, well. You can thank me later. Preferably by continuing not to kill me. I expect Brina and the girls would find it objectionable if you pushed me off of a bridge at this late date and time." He was smiling, though, and that was all right.

He managed a laugh, reaching into the bag with his good hand to fish out one of the replacement phones. "Yeah, well. I think it might be time to retire after this shit. Get Jim back and... I don't know."

The fact that he hadn't managed to find him the last time had been terrifying enough; now, knowing that Holmes would be hiding him with even more care this time made Bastian's teeth clench, made his fingers twitch. "About that."

About that? Bastian lifted an eyebrow at his brother in law. "Yeah?" About that was an interesting introduction to an idea he probably didn't want to hear.

"I think the possibilities have been narrowed down to two. Neither of them will be easily accessible." No kidding. That had to be the understatement of the century. Like it could ever be anything like easy.

"I have plans for most facilities." He offered it almost hesitantly, but in for a penny, in for a pound, "But I need it narrowed down to one. Because if I try the wrong one, they'll move him again. It has to be the right one."

Jeremy nodded and the quiet stretched for a long moment. "All right. I'll keep working." He licked his lips. "You realize I won't be able to do this again. Find him, I mean."

Which made Sebastian Moran a selfish fucking bastard. He closed his eyes for a moment. "No. Just. Let it go. I'll... I have a feeling the only way to make this stick is to try to make a deal with the devil."

"That doesn't sound good. Tell me that you plan to live through it and perhaps I'll stop." His mouth twitched. "After all, your sister could support all of us but I find it's quite nice to afford anniversary presents. Also, I have no urge to die just as yet."

"I plan to live through this," Bastian offered, plugging in his lock code on the backup phone. "I just might have to make a deal with Mycroft Holmes to do it. He's made it clear he's declared war. I can't fight him anymore."

There was nothing they could possibly do. Nothing that made any sense, no way to make this something that made sense. He would have to find a way to force Jim to back off of it, and that... that wasn't something that he would consider incredibly likely.

They'd have to leave the country again, which hadn't actually been a hardship as far as Bastian was concerned. That would be fine by him. He wasn't going to consider any other possibilities.

Even if there was a message on his phone from an unfamiliar number.

Licking his lips, he flicked a thumb from recents to voicemail and thumbed the number, lifting the phone to his ear.

_"Hello, Colonel. I am quite glad that you seem to be recovering. I thought that perhaps you would like to know that I am taking particularly good care of our mutual friend. Perhaps I shall send you flowers before you are dismissed. Do call if I can do anything for you."_

And that was all.

It was an open invitation, and he was going to have to. He was going to have to swallow his pride and maybe his sanity and just try. Not yet, though, not until he was discharged and his sister stopped worrying about his skull, because the stitches didn't seem that bizarre to him. He didn't have any broken legs, and his shoulder was re-healing. It wasn't as bad as the last time. At least that was what he told himself.

Never mind the holes in his skull.

"Well?" Jeremy seemed expectant, his head perked to the side. "What did she say?"

"She?" He blinked at Jeremy for a moment, and then staring down at his phone. "He said to call if he can do anything for me."

Oh. That flare of eyes seemed... disturbed. "He. Oh, my."

"So. That's what he wants, me to come and make a deal with him." Bastian shook his head, mostly to himself as he looked to see what sorts of texts he had backed up. "They mention when I should be able to get out of here?"

There was something shifty in the way that Jeremy glanced at the door. "Ah.. I will go and check to see what they say. If you like. The physician usually makes rounds in an hour or so."

It made him wonder just what the fuck was going on, made every sense he had go into alert. "If you're going to try something..."

"Oh, I have absolutely no intention of trying anything. Nothing at all, in fact." And yet he was so suspicious. The reason why was clear.

He didn't pursue it, just closed his eyes for a moment to try to focus before he started really paying attention to the texts. There were projects he was going to have to jettison, and fast, before he even got to the point of getting Jim out.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. There was too much to do and trying to winnow out which one of the projects to finish off first made his head ache, as if it didn't already. They could wait a day, wait two days. Nothing was urgent, so he started to reply to messages carefully, delaying, making sure everything kept moving because there was nothing going that, once moving, couldn't be silenced quietly by him. Nothing big. He and Jim had been handling the big plans, letting the smaller things work themselves out as they went along. It was one of the great things about doing what they did; sometimes they left things alone and sometimes Jim would micromanage things to the point of the ridiculous. It left most of their operators halfway paranoid that they could show up at any moment and kept them sharp.

"Since you plan to keep yourself occupied, I expect that I can find other ways to keep myself occupied." Jeremy seemed thoughtful. "I won't be far."

"Right. Still interested in knowing when I can escape." He might as well call it as it was, while he carefully picked his way through messages, not really engaging but keeping things going enough to be useful.

He was going to have to get himself released against advisement once he was sure he could get out of the bed without injuring something else. Because Mycroft was waiting for him.

It was just a waiting game now.

* * *

"No, you can't leave! I don't give a damn what you think, I will have you sedated if necessary."

Why was it that his sister was so damned scary?

Physical therapy was a bitch; the only upside was that it was his last round of in-house therapy and they were going to release him to 'go home' with his sister. Which was sort of true and sort of a lie, but all in all, true enough that Brina had declined to give him funny looks when he calmly agreed to just that arrangement.

After all, there was still the horrible possibility that he might not be able to get Jim back. It was enough to make him focus as he did the stupid walking bit when he didn't need fucking bars supporting him, whether they fucked up his bad leg again or not. Hell, he hadn't fully healed from the last round they'd inflicted on him, what did the staff expect? "There. That good enough?"

The therapist smiled up at him. She seemed sort of tiny but she was scary strong in ways that hurt like hell. "You've made quite a lot of progress. Considering all of your former injuries, I'm quite surprised things have gone so well."

"Ha!" Of course Brina would find that objectionable. "He would be doing better if he stopped doing very stupid things."

"I haven't even had time to do anything stupid," Bastian bit out, a little sharply. "Seriously, I spent four months laid up in Switzerland, just get walking, get home, and I get the shit beat of me the next day."

The lack of sympathy was irritating in the extreme. "Well, if you will do stupid things..."

He was two steps from exploding when a voice caught his attention. "Oh. Colonel Moran. How nice to see you again."

"Oh, Christ." He closed his eyes, turning to look over his shoulder a little. Never mind that he already knew who it was -- woman's voice, pitched slightly, like it was a surprise to see him when it was no such thing. "How the fuck did you get down here? How, isn't this supposed to be not an area reporters can just wander into?"

The therapist blinked and he saw his sister go tense. Kitty Riley spoke before either of them managed. "Oh, I was visiting my editor. He's been having physical therapy to recover from knee surgery." She couldn't have looked any more like a cat licking cream if she tried. "I just happened to be walking by and I saw you. It surprised me not to see Richard. How is he? For that matter, how are you?"

He squinted at her for a moment, feeling the wheels turn in his head. "How the hell do I look? We get back to London, get jumped, someone kidnaps Richard and I end up here with a fucking hole in my head. He's gone."

God, he hated fucking reporters. If she'd had floppy ears they would have been perked forwards in eagerness. "Kidnapped? But surely no one would be interested unless you think perhaps Mycroft Holmes is resentful."

Bastian exhaled, snorted while he rubbed absently at his fucked up shoulder. It hurt, but in a sort of good way. "It's possible. I don't know enough to say. He's missing, though, hasn't answered any of his texts..." And did he use her against Mycroft, or did he just go and try to play his hand with the man?

"Perhaps he..."

"Oh, for god's sake." Sabrina snapped it, meanly, her hand tightening on his wrist. "Fuck off, whoever you are."

He closed his eyes for a moment, and mostly focused on his balance. "That's probably a good idea. I can't, this isn't a good time."

Riley nodded, all fake sympathy and greed for a good story. "Of course. I understand completely. Perhaps I could help you, we could..."

The grind in his sister's voice was audible and nasty . "Fuck off."

He wanted to mouth 'thank you' at Sabrina, but settled at flexing his wrist before she clutched too hard. "Took the words out of my mouth. Had enough of your help for a lifetime, ma'am. Out."

Her lips pursed, wrinkling at the edges unpleasantly. "Well. I'll leave you to it then. If you change your mind, I feel sure you can find me."

"I'm sure I could." And he didn't want to. He closed his eyes, focused on his sister still when he opened his eyes again. There was no sense in moving until he he heard her high heels clip off.

Brina didn't say anything, just looked at him with a determination that likely would have been frightening to anyone who had never lived with Jim. "Well. I suppose you can be done with this. The hyenas have clearly gone on the prowl."

"Good. I'd like to get out of here," Bastian murmured, shrugging his shoulders tightly and giving an apologetic look to the shocked seeming physical therapist. She'd survive, and he didn't know what part of what had been said had given her such agony.

People were a mystery at times.

"But he should receive more therapy," the girl blurted only to be overruled in short by Brina.

"He'll be fine. There are private therapists and I feel sure we can manage."

"I'd like to be someplace she can't find me again." And his sister was agreeing with him. Even if his only best plan was to walk into the lion's den, he needed Jim back. He was scared for him. He was scared for himself. Maybe even scared for the world because shit. He was coming apart at the seams, and he had no idea what to do about it.

Brina's hand shifted, caught his fingers. "Then let's go home."

"Well." The therapist nodded, still looking unsure, but willing to roll with it. That was tenacity. "Uh, let's get you back up to your room and then we'll get a doctor in about discharging you..."

"Call Karahov," his sister dictated. "He'll be glad to release him into my care."

"Oh, uh. Of course." The therapist was still directing Bastian over to the wheel chair, so he walked over there, careful as he could manage, no hobbling or falling over as he went. All he had to do was seem in tip top shape and get the fucking fuck out of there.

Once he had managed that, he could start making decisions and putting things into place. He could find a way to get to Jim, and he was going to do just that. Mycroft Holmes would not be allowed to stand in his way.

* * *

His sister wasn't going to be happy with him, but that was life. She spent a lot of time angry at him, or scared about his ability to continue to exist, but if he didn't get things resolved and soon then he was going to really test her patience.

And that started with hunting Mycroft Holmes down in the Diogenes club.

The thing of it was that he knew the rules. His father had been a member, and his father's father, and so on and so forth.

Sebastian had never been good with rules.

Still, he put on a good suit, armed himself as a precaution, wiped most of the rage off of his face, and parked around the corner. One leg was still weak -- thanks to the damaging swelling from the excellent concussion -- but it was his left leg, so fuck it. And his hair had finally started to grow back to the point that the nieces didn't eye him when they thought he wasn't looking, even if he felt like a fucking fresh recruit. He wasn't at a hundred percent, might never be again because just when he thought he was all right he realized there was something he hadn't tested yet that wasn't quite up to snuff.

The only thing that satisfied him as he let himself into the place was that if it all went wrong he was going to take out a sizable chunk of the greatest policy-minds in England.

The silence was obnoxious. Combined with the drifting scent of cigar smoke coming from somewhere, it made his jaw clench. All of these bastards wanted their rules followed but they never wanted to follow anyone else's.

He strode into the middle of the first sitting room and stopped dead.

Sometimes he thought the worst part of being a soldier was that no plan, no plan ever, survived contact with reality. He'd planned and plotted and expected outcomes and fuck if he didn't miss reality by a kilometre or more.

He didn't expect Mycroft Holmes to be there. Well, he did and he didn't. If he was there, he planned on surrendering, loudly, probably pissing off the rest of the room. If he wasn't there, he'd planned on making a fucking obnoxious fuss and getting escorted off the premises, or at least to Holmes himself. He hadn't expected to see Jim propped up in a chair across from the elder Holmes. He was stuffed into a suit, but he looked hollowed out around the eyes, thinner than he should've been, all of that mania siphoned off. Sebastian couldn't see his hands right off, but the hunched shoulder posture told him they were cuffed in front of him.

Bastian started forward with a stutter of motion, unable to find words to break the mindless silence of the place.

The vaguely superior smile Mycroft gave him seemed immensely pleased as he waited in silence, only his eyes speaking at all. Fuck. Fuck, and Jim was looking at him, Jim's eyes were following him as he got close, stopped and crumbled to his knees, taking Jim's cuffed hands in his, because Christ, there was something wrong with his eyes, something not quite there, the roiling animal threat in them gone. But he was tracking and that was good, he seemed to recognize Bastian. "Jim..."

It was a breath, barely a whisper, but he felt the entire room tense in response. The fact that he could feel that but Jim never tensed or moved made him sick.

Holmes raised a hand and gestured, catching Bastian's attention. It was peremptory, as if his acquiescence was assured. It made him want to scream. He didn't, though, bit back the angry yells, the howls that were sitting in his chest as he clutched at Jim's fingers. He needed something, a response, acknowledgement, something. He needed to get Jim out of there, find out what they'd done to him, undo it. Make it all go away, because he needed Jim back, he needed, he...

He leaned his forehead against Jim's knee, and felt Jim stretch his fingers.

That much was good, so good, and he found himself gasping for breath, not caring what anyone thought about it. They could go fuck themselves.He crawled in closer, stayed on his aching knees, slid an arm around Jim's waist and got fingers against his shorn hair, tracing, exploring, skimming along the outside of his ear with enough familiarity to shake him. He wanted to get to his feet and shake him, scream at Jim to fucking do something, give him a sign. To do anything except fucking _sit there_ because it was more than he could bear, more than he could deal with when all he wanted was to scream.

It shouldn't have been a surprise to feel hands on his shoulders but it was somehow, and he came up swinging, completely ready for a fight that wasn't necessary, didn't need to be because Mycroft had set him up, again and again, and again. He surged, angry and scared and fucked up, but the two fellows with bags on their shoes to muffle noise were a match for him. And they knew it, one of them giving him wide berth right off. "Don't, I came to surrender, I just want him back..." It came out a cracked whisper that was probably too loud for that place.

The guards hustled him along despite his occasional wriggling, and he wanted to fight harder. He wanted to make demands, but he could see Holmes moving behind him, rising. Probably he would bring Jim. Probably, and he would have to settle for that. Had to, because he had to pull himself together. Christ. Strapped in unobtrusive explosives and he was falling apart over Jim showing up instead of the idea that he might have to blow himself to kingdom come. Blowing himself to kingdom come didn't fucking matter -- accidentally blowing Jim to kingdom come was another story, Jim hardly responsive and handcuffed and alive was another story on top of that, so Bastian went, and kept his eyes on Holmes, particularly when they weren't headed for the front door, but deeper into the building. They could've just started there, but Mycroft wanted a public scene, and he got his fucking public scene.

Bastard. Sick fucking bastard. He wanted more than anything to kill him, to feel his thumbs crushing that throat, to feel him die beneath his fingertips. Before, he had thought he understood what Jim was doing, what made him want to crush Sherlock into nothing more than dust.

Now, he understood, right down to the core of him. He _knew_.

The two big men shuffled him into a room, and he wasn't surprised by Holmes speaking. "Always the rule breaker, Colonel. I find myself unsurprised that you would speak, although I feel sure that most people with emotions would have had a similar reaction."

He swallowed back a noise that didn't feel human at all, eyes fixed on Jim as the two bruisers stepped out of the way. Not out of sight, but out of mind, just ready in case. "What've you done to him?"

That fucking superior bastard. Bastian wanted to punch his teeth down his throat, wanted to make him swallow them. God. Fucker. _Fucker_. "Oh, just a little implant. His problems were... getting in the way of some things."

"Oh, god, oh, fuck, you..." His hands shook, and one came up to cover his mouth and smother back words because if he rushed Mycroft, he knew they'd take Jim away and he'd never see him again. He knew it, this was his only chance, whether he wanted to put Mycroft's teeth through his throat or not. He could pretend, pretend just for once in his life that he was a patient son of a bitch, and focus on the moment, on Jim standing there without the beast prowling behind his eyes.

"Mmm. I had hoped for a better response than that, but..." He trailed into silence and tilted his head forwards slightly. "You should understand that I will do whatever is necessary to find a solution to a problem. Both of you have been quite complex and problematic."

Problematic. They never should've taken on younger Holmes, never, because the payouts hadn't been worth it, none of it was worth that, worth Jim standing there, fingers moving faintly, fingers.

Fingers. Code? Jim knew thousands of codes, but he knew Bastian knew maybe two. Morse being his stronger suit, so he kept his eyes moving, darting, trying to see if there was any information he could get off of Jim's hands. "What do I have to do to take hime home? I can't, I'm not leaving without him."

Mycroft sat down, hands on the arms of his chair, one leg crossing over the other. "You may do so. The problem has been solved for now." For now. So what? What did that mean exactly? He had no idea and Jim's fingers were still moving, slow and careful or maybe not.

Dash dash dot break dot break dash. Dash dash break dot. Dash dash dash break dot dot dash break dash. He flicked his eyes up to Mycroft. "Then uncuff him." _Get me out._ Well, here was the obvious next word that he missed, but that was fine, because there was a brain behind the patina of absence, and it knocked back some of the sharper pain.

"I want your word." The intensity of that cold-eyed expression would quite possibly terrify a lesser man. "I want your word that you will be done with this. Finished. You understand?" Those fingers kept moving. _Get me out get me out get me out_. How long had he been doing that?

"I'm finished," he offered, lifting his hands halfway up in a gesture of surrender. "They had to move part of my skull to release the pressure from the concussion your fucking thugs left me. I, I'm fucking done. I can't do this anymore."

They couldn't do this anymore. They couldn't tempt this. Mycroft Holmes was a glacier, and neither of them could ever run hot enough to destroy him. Not ever. Not even Jim, and all Bastian wanted to do was reach out and hold him. Touch him. Make him better.

Make him back into exactly what he was and not what he had been made to be.

Under Holmes's watchful eye, he started towards Jim, trying not to shake because fuck. Fuck, they'd broken Jim, finally broken him. He touched the cuffs first, trying to still Jim's fingers. "The keys."

The ring, the key, they were warm when they touched his fingers, warm as the cuffs that were so tight it seemed almost impossible for him to have moved them at all. Jim was looking at him, or maybe through him, his gaze steady, blank, broken only by slow blinks.

"You can keep them. Just in case you find you need them again for some reason."

His fingers managed not to fumble them when he turned the key in one wrist and then the other, sliding them and the keys into his back pocket. "Hey, c'mon, Jim. Say something."

Blank. Just... empty, and it hurt him so much he felt his heart skip, his breath stop.

"Fuck." He leaned his forehead against Jim's shoulder, taking a deep breath before he straightened up, sliding an arm behind his shoulders. "Fuck. Is that it, or do you have any final parting threats?"

The sheer self-satisfaction rolled off of Holmes in ways. "Is it necessary for me to make any?" 

No. It wasn't, because he had proven as well as anything that he could make things happen. That he could make them do whatever he wanted.

Fuck. Fuck. He started to walk Jim away then, because he could get him to Sabrina's and check him out there, see just what they'd done and... and. And he couldn't do a fucking thing about it. There had to be something he could do but just then the only thing he could do was to walk Jim out of the place, carefully, trying to get a feel for his pace.

For everything.

For anything.

Maybe the thing to do should have been setting off the explosion. Better for both of them. Maybe. Perhaps. The thing of it was that Bastian was a survivor. He had always been a survivor.

He would survive this, too. Had to. It was just what he did. He fucking carried on. By the time they reached the street, he had less of a death grip on Jim's shoulders, and had dropped his arm to around Jim's waist, fishing for his car keys. The silence stretched and stretched until it hurt him, until he wanted to howl. Instead, he settled Jim into the passenger side of the car, reaching in to buckle the restraint. He allowed himself to press a kiss to Jim's temple before he pulled away and shut the door, moving to the driver's side of the car.

He had to sit in the driver's side for a minute, left leg twinging pathetically, chest a knotted up mess, and his head fucking killing him, while Jim sat silent beside him when he started it up and pulled away. "I can't believe this. I can't fucking believe this."

None of it, and Jim's fingers were moving again, pressed against his own knee, and it made him want to scream. Made him want to cry and yell and explode, and there was only one thing he could do. Just one.

His fingers were numb, but he managed to put in the passcode, managed to fumble to his favorites and bump his thumb against his sister's name.

_"Sebastian?"_ Upset and afraid, and maybe that made him feel less alone but it also made him a dick for making her that way.

"I'm coming back. I have Jim." They'd fucked him up beyond all recognition, but he couldn't say that because he couldn't follow whatever it was Jim was tapping out and keep his eyes on the road. "He's all, he's."

_"Oh god."_ She still sounded sick, but less scared somehow. _"What do you need? And when did I turn into your trauma surgeon?"_

"You're not. He's, they put an implant in him. He's completely drugged. Hasn't said a word. He's still got morse code, which. Which is something. I suppose he recognized me, if he's trying to use morse code, stupid fucking soldier who can't follow binary." He eased into traffic, trying not to do more than briefly glance over at Jim.

_"Do... never mind, we'll need bloodwork, we'll...."_ He could hear the deep breath she took over the phone. _"Shut up and drive."_ She didn't say any of the things she probably wanted to -- things like _I told you to try medication_ or _if we had just talked about this_ or he had no idea what.

He could hear it all, so she didn't have to say it. "Yeah, okay. I can do that. Should be a couple of hours. Traffic's horrible. We'll, uh." Guest house, because he was mostly living there, sleeping there and then having the nieces stare at him. He apparently made an excellent babysitter by virtue of not having enough energy to get up to trouble.

_"Shut up and drive,"_ she said again, and then the phone beeped to let him know she had disconnected the call.

He dropped his phone, and it fell somewhere to the side, stuck between seats and not worth fishing out. His hand was shaking, and he needed to keep both of them on the steering wheel. Jim was sitting silent beside him. "We'll get you fixed. I, I'll get you fixed."

Nothing but traffic and road noise answered him.

* * *

Shoes. Shirt. Suit. He had taken off all of them, shoved them into the fireplace and set them on fire, and Jim had let him. He had stood there in white boxer briefs and watched, watched the fire and said nothing at all. It was the silence that was the worst. It was unnerving, and it made him want to come apart at the seams.

He was coming apart, crumbling into pieces, and he didn't know how he had gotten there.

Well, he'd driven there. Metaphorically and literally, because it wasn't like someone else had made him do it all. He relished what he did with Jim, loved making things burn, loved fighting with Jim, had never felt more alive with the threat of death around every corner. He shrugged out of his own suit, set it aside carefully. He'd disassemble it later, but for now he needed to try to work out what the fuck was wrong with Jim that he didn't kick a fuss over the fire.

"C'mon. C'mon, say something."

_Say_ something. Anything. Anything at all, and Jim just looked at him, then looked away again. It was making him crazy. Insane. He wasn't going to be able to live like this.

He couldn't live like this.

"Fuck. Fuck!" He wanted to punch something, wanted to rip the house apart around them, but he held onto Jim instead, leaning into him, fuck waiting at a distance. Anything, he'd take any response, anything that told him Jim was in there. Skin on skin still felt real, his hands on Jim's sides, fingers stretched, thumbs against the bottom of his ribcage. "You can't do this to me, I did everything I was supposed to, I came back for you, you can't do this to me..."

Fingers.

Fingers on his elbow, rubbing slowly at the edge of it, at the bone. It wasn't enough, couldn't be enough, but it was something. It was something, right? It was a step.

It was a response, it was Jim moving of his own volition. He walked when Bastian pulled him, moved with him to the sofa because Bastian was shaking and swallowing back rage and hysteria and sitting down was good. There was a fire, and it was warm in the room despite the stench of burnt wool, comfortable, and they could just sit there. He could count bruises that he hadn't put on Jim's skin, new marks, healing marks of scrapes and bruises because Jim'd fought. Jim'd fought them tooth and nail before they'd done that to him. He'd gone down swinging, Bastian promised himself, pulling Jim into his arms because the manic little fucker had nothing moving him just then except Bastian. If he'd left him there in the middle of the room, he might've stayed there forever. At least the Morse code of _get me out_ had stopped.

At least there was that, that and the slow, steady rub of thumb against Bastian's skin. 

He'd no idea how long they were there. He catalogued every injury, every new scar, brushed his lips against the dark bruise visible beneath the short-shorn fuzz of his dark hair. They sat there, and the smell of the burning clothing faded, and when Bastian looked up again, Brina was looking at him. "Welcome back to the waking world. You haven't been answering your mobile."

He glanced over to his pants on the far side of the room, but Jim under his hands was much more important, Jim still and drugged down to nothing but alive. His mouth was still against Jim's head, and it took him a moment to remember how to form words. Jim was the talker after all, and Bastian didn't have to. "I can't handle this."

His sister's hand reached out, caressing his cheek, his chin. "I know, Basty. I know." He could hear her other hand fumbling, reaching for something, he didn't care what. He didn't care because Jim wasn't right. Things weren't right.

He rubbed fingers on Jim's shoulder, swallowing and breathing. He wasn't stupid by a long shot, and the needle stick didn't startle him at all. "I fucking hate most everyone on this dirty ball of water." There it was, damp spill sliding down the side of his nose while he clutched Jim closer. His sister's poor white leather sofa deserved better than the two of them huddled up together on it. "They took my Jim away. They put out the fire in his eyes."

"Shhh. Shhh, Basty. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be plenty of time. I will fix this, and if I can't fix this, I feel sure your crazy illegal butcher will find a way. I'll fix this. Do you hear me? I will fix this."

"I don't. I..." His tongue was going funny, and it was easier to close his mouth, feeling the bristle of Jim's hair against his skin, than it was to protest, than it was to tell Sabrina anything else.

* * *

Everything he had hurt like hell. Like he had slept in a puppy puddle on the couch, which he kind of had, so it was completely explainable. Jim probably hurt like hell, too, but he was lying there, breathing steadily and watching Bastian's every move.

Alert, with eyes that looked a little better. Bastian rubbed a thumb over Jim's cheek, and felt disappointed when he didn't end up bitten for the gesture. He slid his hand back, carefully sliding away the blankets. "Morning." Morning. Mornings came with routines, things Bastian did and was used to doing. Things they both needed to do, other than stare each other down on the sofa under blankets.

He moved, and Jim moved with him, uncurling himself so that he could settle to one side, blinking at Bastian with something like recognition. Something like feeling, even if the most he did was give a slow sigh. Whatever they gave him, were giving him, were... whatever it was, it was clearly too much. Much too much.

Jim was all tamped down, so Bastian shifted and managed to get his feet on the floor. "I can do this. Fuck. Do you want a shower before breakfast? 's the soap and shampoo you like." Never mind that he wasn't going to get an answer, he needed to keep trying. If he stopped trying then it was over and done and he would have to accept the fact that Jim wasn't Jim anymore.

There was no way that he could do that. He couldn't, not ever, and so instead he stood, joints popping, shoulder aching, knee weak, and he took hold of Jim's hand, then his forearm when he didn't try to grasp Bastian in return. He moved when tugged, making his way to his feet.

He felt better for sleeping, and supposed he could set Jim down in front of those god fucking awful DVDs they'd made as punishment for succumbing to Mycroft Holmes's drugs, but that would hinge on how shitty he felt when he had to dismantle the bombs he'd had in his suit jacket. That was post breakfast, though, and getting Jim into the tub, boxers off, was more important. Clean was one step closer to being home.

Clean was one step closer to being real. To being them, to being all of the things they should be, and he would have to take that as the first step towards things being all right. Towards the world being everything it should be, and if he could just pretend, even if only for a few minutes, then it would be fine. Everything would be fine if he just kept telling himself that it would be.

"Having you like this is going to make me completely mental," Bastian whispered, against Jim's neck as he walked him to the bathroom. At least the guest house felt familiar to him from the last week and change he'd spent there getting his bearings, even if his leg leg felt constantly precarious. Fuck if he was going to use a cane and really feel like John Watson was a warped reflection of him. "And we're not taking him on again. We're getting close to looking like the black knight." He turned on the shower head, cranked the warm water up, and slid out of his own pants before easing down Jim's boxers. There was a bruise on his hip like he'd knocked into something, because Jim did know how to fall correctly, without busting wrists and fingers. It still made possessiveness flare as he walked Jim under the water, shutting the door behind them.

The water was clearly good. Jim moved, hands pressing against the tiles, head dropping down to duck beneath it, so at least he could think that far. It was all slow motion, as though it required more effort than he could give to it, but he was at least trying. That was enough to make Bastian's pulse quicken, hope rising where there hadn't been any. What kind of microchip was it, and what sort of medication was it releasing? It was clearly far too much, one way and another, so much that it was all Jim could do to sit, to bathe, to exist. There  
had to be a way to stop it from releasing so fucking much, because the message he'd been given by Mycroft was rather pointed -- cause trouble again, and death was next.

"We'll fix this," Bastian promised, sliding a hand along Jim's back. He was tracing vertebra with fingertips from shoulder blades down to ass as he reached for the expensive shower gel that Jim liked. He ended up halfway under the stream with Jim, pouring it out onto his hands because Jim was just bracing himself and standing under the heat. "I promise."

He had to promise, because if they didn't, if they couldn't... Well. He was sure that the attempt on the roof at St. Bart's had been in an excess of enthusiasm, caught up in the moment, being the manic little fucker he could be. Knowing that, knowing Jim, knowing... so many things, Bastian knew, was solidly certain, that this complete lack of anything might cause the same damned thing.

Except it wouldn't be a blank that time.

Bastian started to slide soap over Jim's skin carefully, watching traces of grey grime slide down the shower drain, confirmation that they'd probably been afraid to let Jim alone in a shower long enough to really get clean. "Fuckers," Bastian sighed, mouth set grimly as he scrubbed fingers carefully over Jim's stomach, his hips, thighs. He just needed to focus, to keep focused, never mind the quietly pleased sighs Jim was giving. Sighs were better than nothing. Anything was better than nothing, better than silence and staring at walls, and he was so grateful for them. For a response, for anything he could get, and when he palmed Jim's cock, he was half-hard. The fact that he was half anything made Bastian shudder, try for a better response.

When Jim turned and leaned up, his eyes still weren't right. Nothing was right, or even close, but he tilted his head just so, and Bastian took the invitation for what it was. Jim was under there, under the drugs, he was sure of it, because the tilt of his head was the same as it always was, enough to reach for the conditioner to slick his hand better, sliding a finger up Jim's ass without much prelude. That reaction was better, Jim tight, one foot slipping a little until Bastian pinned him to the wall with his hips. "Hold on, hold on, just, give me a minute, fuck you're tight. If they'd laid a hand on you I'd break that promise and go back to London to find them..."

Find them, rip out parts, chunks, things they needed, with his bare hand, and he was getting sounds now, small and hard and panted out, as if Jim couldn't stop them. Maybe that's all it was, had to be all it was, that he was overmedicated and he couldn't think and Jim couldn't talk if he couldn't think. This didn't require thinking or talking, just them, body to body, and the kissing was lazy and slow. It was nothing like it should be, and it didn't matter. Didn't, because he was so grateful, and Jim was squirming against him, hands stroking over the wet skin of his shoulders, and it was going to be all right. It was, they would, whatever it was, they would get it out and it would be just fine.

Slicking himself up was mechanical because Bastian couldn't think without circling back to the same pathetic worry line, that he could fix Jim, that he had to fix Jim, so he focused, turned him, kissed the back of Jim's neck while he shoved into Jim's ass to the sound of Jim giving a noise caught between a grunt and a whinge. He was going to have to thank Sabrina for not going cheap on the hot water unit, he decided, starting into short thrusts right away.

God.

It was just like it should be, like it always was with them. Jim was shoving his ass back steadily, and the sounds, they were so good, they made him fucking grateful. If he could make those noises, if he could fuck back to him just like this, then it could be fixed. It could all be fixed, and he reached down to stroke him, touch him, get him off.

He was past half hard, which was a relief, so Bastian pressed his teeth against Jim's shoulder and fucked him harder, stroking all the while, until his knuckles were going to be bruised from getting knocked up against the tiles. He didn't care, couldn't care, and he was going to make it work. He was going to, he had to, and when he hiccoughed a sound, it caught him by surprise.

Bastian kept moving, but he stopped briefly, startled, surprised, maybe, but it didn't stop him from coming in Jim's ass, focused on how familiar, how gorgeous Jim's body always felt against his own. It didn't stop him from stroking faster, feeling the shift in Jim's body, the hard focus forward against his hand because he was finally coming.

Finally.

Finally, and if they stood there under the hot water longer than was strictly necessary, there wasn't anyone to notice. He could stand there, skin to skin with Jim, hands idling over Jim's body.

By the time he turned off the water, his fingers were pruned, waterlogged. Jim stepped out on his own, but Bastian was the one who dried him, dried both of them. They had cut his hair, so there wasn't enough to add product. He did it anyway, for the familiarity of it, of the scent, the feel, because he thought he saw something familiar in Jim's eyes when he did it. Hell, they both looked like they'd had hatchet jobs done on them, but hair grew back.

In the bedroom, he had a suitcase of Jim's clothes, and getting him dressed wasn't as hard as undressing him had been the night before. He got Jim into underwear, jeans, watched Jim fasten up the button fly without prompting while he shook out one of Jim's too expensive t-shirts, the jacket Jim had worn when he had robbed the Tower of London. It'd do for walking Jim over to the main house, because Bastian didn't trust himself alone just then. There was still an itching urge to tear the guest house down around them, and Jim needed to be fed. Needed a lot of things. Both of them, clearly, but when he opened the door, Jim was behind him, moving on his own now as if he were coming out of whatever dark well of thought he had buried himself in while he was gone. Gone, not any of the other words that he might have used for it. Just gone.

"We'll go see what travesty of cooking my sister's inflicted on her family, and see if we can get them straightened out. I'm not even sure what you've been surviving on." It was probably on par with hospital food, if not worse, so he could make something Jim would want, in a house where he'd be more mindful, more careful of what he was doing.

On the front step, he stopped to light a cigarette for himself, caught himself and offered it to Jim. It was brisk outside, but not cold, not bad at all.

Their fingers brushed, and Jim raised it to his mouth, a slow motion, and then he breathed in smoke and lowered his hand before breathing it out again. "Yeah."

There was no sense in crushing that surge of hope to hear Jim's voice, even as soft a murmur as that was. He lit a cigarette for himself, and they both stood there for a moment, smoking and breathing and ruining their lungs because it just felt good. "I missed the sound of your voice."

The rough hum of agreement was equally as quiet, but it was everything. It made him relax maybe, made him think that it might, maybe, be all right. His chest loosened, and he felt the sounds of relief against the back of his throat, trying to get out of him. Instead, he moved forwards, just a step, and then he looked back to see if Jim had followed him.

He had, even if there was a flicker of an eyebrow, a motion of eye that Bastian associated with getting punched. The hit never came, and the expression faded away, but he started to walk again, pace leisurely as they headed to his sister's house, burning ash as they went.

Jeremy's car was in the drive, and he could hear the girls once he opened the door. They were arguing over something, a doll or a book or, hell, he didn't know. A pair of socks, could be anything, and so he wasn't surprised to find Sidney running pellmell at him before they had even shut the door. "Uncle Basty, make her give it back!"

It made him glad they'd put the cigs, or what was left of them, out on the driveway, because Jim held his right at the level of putting in kids' eyes. "What'm I making your sister give back?" She was the youngest, which meant she made the best prey even among three nice kids. She was also the most likely to win in the end, so it evened out.

"It's mine!" Summer was the oldest, and obstinate as Sabrina had ever been. "It is mine, and I won't give it back, I won't!"

God. Maybe they should have stayed in the guest house, but Jim seated himself at the table, chin in his hand, and he was watching as if it might be interesting. A little. Just a bit. So he left Jim alone, focusing on the two girls for the moment. He ran a hand back over his head, taking in his two nieces. Completely worked up, and he had no bloody clue over what, or where their father was, other than somewhere in the house. "And just what'm I getting you to give back or not?"

"She took my--!"

"I didn't take it, it was--!"

Right. Right, and it was all blah blah blah, some doll, and it gave him a headache just thinking about it, but Jim was making these sounds, quiet and weird and it made Bastian twitchy until he saw him. There was no fire in him, not even anything like his ordinary amusement, but it was something. Maybe it would be... not all right, but better than it had been yesterday. That or maybe the meds were wearing off. If that was the case, what would happen when the next dose was released? Was it back to Zombie Jim?

He rubbed his hand over his forehead, eyeing them both. "Right, give your sister her doll back. You two eaten breakfast, or did you just start the morning with squabbling?"

It immediately devolved into worse until Jeremy spoke up from the doorway. "Girls, girls! No one can have the doll. The doll now belongs to your uncle Jim, all right? No dolls for either of you!"

He gave a quiet laugh, shaking his head. "Have you fed them yet? I was going to make breakfast, and wanted to see if anyone else needed feeding."

"Me!" Sara exclaimed, waving a hand. "I deserve french toast. I wasn't fighting!"

"Oh, yeah?"

Best to stop this before it got out of hand, and clearly Jeremy agreed. "If any of you speak again in the next ten minutes, you'll all get a boiled egg and wheat toast."

"But Daddy!" Three voices. Clearly that didn't work so well.

Bastian wandered over to the stove. "No, no. Here, all three of you sit down and at least hold still. That way you can at least pretend to be helpful while I cook."

The chatter started up as he pulled out a frying pan and oil, ducked to the fridge for eggs. A sidestep got him a loaf of bread, a bowl, and he began putting together the requested french toast, listening with half of an ear, mostly wanting Jim's voice.

It didn't join the fray, but he kept an eye on Jim. And after a while, so did Summer, which was problematic. "Uncle Jim, why're you quiet? You have such funny stories!"

Bastian was quiet for a moment, just in case Jim managed to answer something.

No answer. The crack of an egg against a bowl was loud, and then Sidney chimed in as well. "Please, Uncle Jim. Tell us something funny!"

Jeremy interrupted before Bastian had to say anything. "Girls, your uncle Jim doesn't feel well right now. Let him be, all right?"

Bastian swallowed, shook it off, reached for the bread. "But why doesn't he feel well? I don't want to get sick," Summer half-asked, half-said, still peering at Jim.

"It's not catching." He wasn't sure how frank a discussion Sabrina wanted him to be having with the girls about mental illness, about crazy government assholes, about the highlife of a crimelord. She'd already had to have the two uncles talk with them, which Bastian supposed was overdue given that he'd been out for the last, fuck, thirty years. "Do you remember what your mum said about Aunt Viviane?"

"That Aunt Viviane didn't feel well and we shouldn't bother her because sometimes she's so sad." Sara's face was infinitely serious.

"That's right." Jeremy reached out and patted her hand, reached for Summer with the other and somehow managed to stretch past her to pat Sidney. "So we'll let Uncle Jim be, too, and be extra nice to him."

Yeah, it was probably good that he hadn't pushed Jeremy off of that bridge. Bastian threw in a little syrup and cinnamon, then dredged the bread. "Right, so. We've got that out of the way. You lot have anything planned today?" Sometimes he forgot that weeks weren't just work work work, and that it was Saturday. When normal families went out and did things. Regardless of what shift his sister had, and how right up a wall Bastian had personally put her.

"Nothing," Summer said. "But we could go out, especially if Uncle Jim feels bad. We could have cake. Chocolate cake, even."

Sneaky little chit. "You could." And maybe, maybe Jim would get better. Maybe it wasn't going to be so bad. Maybe they had given him heavier doses when they had him, or....

"Jim?" Jeremy sounded concerned. "Jim, are you all right?"

Bastian couldn't quite turn around, because. Because, fuck. Fuck. He was going to break if he had to turn around. He turned the grill on instead. "Next dose auto-dispensed. Fuck." Fuck, fuck. Fuck. He started to fish his cell phone out, flipping over to Mycroft's damn number, a phone reserved just for taunting psychopaths, Bastian was sure, but he still fired off a text, hand shaking. 

_He's overmedicated. How do I take the dose down?_ Because he was trying to cooperate, he really fucking was.

No answer. Nothing, and he wanted, he wanted not to be making french toast, he wanted to go back to the guest house, he wanted everything to be all right, and the world stretched thin around him. There was sizzle and warm good smells and Jeremy was talking quietly behind him, the girls quiet, tension swelling up thickly in the room.

Bastian kept focused on what he was doing, setting pieces down, flipping them precisely, because he couldn't think quite then or listen or really let himself react because Mycroft Holmes was probably sitting in the Diogenes Club chuckling to himself in silence when Bastian desperately wanted familiar noises. He wasn't going to let himself react with the nieces there, and he wasn't going to wallow in it except, fuck. Fuck. He was going to find where those implants were and pry them out with a boxcutter if he couldn't think of another solution.

He didn't care. He didn't care, he didn't care, he would, he would do whatever, and the toast was burning, his hands were shaking. Fuck. Fuck, that was miserable, and he had nieces. There were kids, and he tossed that piece onto a plate for himself before he started the next one, blocking out the whole of it because what else was he going to do?

Somehow he managed to get through the rest of the pile without burning any more pieces, turned the temperature down on the grill and just fucking focused. Didn't let anything else in until he was done, toast stacked up on plates. "There we go. Decent breakfast." Pretend it was normal, pretend everything was calm, setting a plate down in front of each girl first, then Jeremy, then Jim, then getting the syrup out for them before he sat down beside Jim.

The girls were eyeing Jim, Jeremy was looking at him, it was a mess. A hell of a mess, and he couldn't seem to pull himself together because Jim was back to being utterly and completely still beside him. He wasn't moving, wasn't eating, wasn't doing anything but sitting there. Even when Bastian put his fork in his hand, there was nothing.

There wasn't any covering it. When Jim had been making noises, smoking, following him, there had been at least been some possibility. Bastian licked his bottom lip, and started to doggedly cut a piece off of his with the side of his fork. "We're still, uh. Jim's dose isn't at all right. It's a work in progress."

Jeremy's eyes were trained on him, steady and serious. "Will you be all right if I take the girls out for the morning?"

"Yeah, we'll be fine." He'd go back to the guest house, force feed the god-damned brains of their operation, his boss, his obsession, and then have a fairly low key nervous breakdown because he couldn't really support much more energy than that. Never mind that he'd come to the main house in the first place because he felt like he was shattering.

His brother-in-law nodded and licked his lips. "All right. Who's willing to give up french toast for chocolate cupcakes, then?"

As if that would get any answer other than yes from a child of any age.

He hurried them out of the kitchen to run and get their coats. Bastian pushed away his plate and put his head in his hands, sitting beside his stock-still partner in crime, and just focused on breathing. He had to go basic. He'd spent twenty years and change with grown arse adults who needed to be told to shower and brush their fucking teeth and shampoo goes on your head, so he could manage Jim the invalided by overmedication genius. For just a few days. Couple of weeks at most.

Oh god. He couldn't. Couldn't bear it if this went on for long, couldn't stand for it to drag on for days or weeks or months or years, and he sat up, took in a shuddering breath. He didn't know what to do with himself or what to do with Jim, but he had to start somewhere. Had to.

He waited until he heard Jeremy leave the room, waited until the girls and he left the house before he fished his phone out again, and then stopped himself. It could wait until Sabrina got off shift. He could talk to her then and call Malgueret after. She hadn't had the pleasure of making his acquaintance yet, and Bastian wanted to put that off. He could feed him, and then they could sit on the sofa and just. Just watch TV and focus on not having a fucking nervous breakdown.

Somehow he managed to put down his mobile and fumble his way through cleaning the kitchen. It helped to move, to do something, to pretend that Jim wasn't sitting at the table motionless and staring at his plate. To pretend that things were something like normal, and then the trill of a text message went off and he dropped a plate in the sink so hard that it shattered.

He looked over his shoulder out of habit, but it wasn't Jim. Jim didn't even have a phone on him, and Bastian would have to rectify that, once he could get his own fucking head on straight. Bastian ended up fishing it out of his pocket, to bring it up, leaning back against the counter to steady himself. He'd clean up the plate later -- the world went on. Work went on.

_We have a problem._

Just that simple, which was terrifying enough. If it had been one of the idiots who generally came forward with problems like that, he could have managed. More than managed, in fact, he could yell and take some of his anger and fear and frustration out on whoever it was. The problem was that it was not one of the idiots.

It was Irene Adler.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and then dialed her number rather than hashing back and forth in fucking texts. She thought they had a problem, she had no bleeding idea how bad the problem was.

_"Bueno, Sebastian."_ Fuck. He had forgotten she was working in Spain. He should have remembered. _"Sabía que ibas a llamar."_

"You said the magic fucking word." He shifted, slowly, and it was probably a bad sign when he sat on the floor with his back against the cabinets. "What's the problem?"

_"He tenido algunos problemas con Felipe. Lo conoce, su hijo. Necesito su ayuda. Ahora."_

He didn't have time to give a damn about what problems she was having with Prince Felipe. He didn't care.

"What problems? Make this fast, I have other fucking problems right now." Like his pending nervous breakdown, because he could see Jim staring into space.

_"Tu sabes que yo no puedo hablar de esto ahora. Tienes que venir. Él es su hijo y él es su problema. Solo le tomó debido a que dijo que se haría cargo de estas cosas."_

"All right. All right. Look, use your judgement. I can't travel to Spain right now to help you." What total bullshit -- why was she calling him from a public location in the first place?

_"Si eso es lo que quiere, pero es una pérdida de tiempo y esfuerzo. Si no se puede comportar aquí, voy a suspender. Él puede ir a casa contigo. Tengo un esposo nuevo, no necesito esto ahora. Envíe a alguien a buscarlo."_

"I don't have the energy for this, Irene. I can't leave the country right now, I'm a little fucking..." He shook his head. "You know what, call me back when you can actually say anything other than your cover story."

"Te necesito ahora!" Her voice was gravel and stone and fear, and Christ. Irene didn't get this fucked up over nothing.

"This is the least sensible conversation I've had in the last two days, and I think that's saying something. What fucking city are you in again? I can send someone to extract you." He rubbed a hand over the bridge of his nose.

_"Bien. Te veré mañana en la iglesia. Estoy seguro de que recordar dónde se encuentra. A lo mejor le puede conjurar, mientras estamos allí."_ And then the bitch hung up.

"What the fucking fuck was that?" Bastian asked the empty kitchen, still staring at his phone. "Christ. Fuck. Fuck! I hate this shit, I hate playing these little games with Irene and the rest of them, it's not fun. It's not fun without you, you asshole."

And Jim just sat there. Just fucking sat there, and time went weird because Bastian looked up and he was shaking and somewhere along the way it had turned into half past eleven. Neither of them had moved and Jim was completely still, and there was nothing, nothing, in his eyes.

He managed to get himself off of the floor, boots scraping on the lovely tile while he got purchase and got standing. If nothing else, Jim needed to piss, and that meant manhandling him to his feet. The only relief there was that Jim was and always had been a manic little fucker. He had a good eight inches on him, and probably thirty pounds, and it would be, he could do that. He could do it, and if he just kept pushing himself, it would be fine. It would be all right. It would be... it would be fine.

He just needed to keep moving.

So he kept moving -- got that taken care of, got Jim on the sofa, broke up now stale french toast and got Jim to eat it, slowly, agonizingly, and to drink water to go with it. They were still on the sofa when he heard the front door open and all right. He'd lost another hour. Or two. Really, for all he cared their business could go to hell in a hand basket, the spider's web dusted to nothing. They had enough money to live well without it and they could always start over. Fuck Irene.

Fuck all of them.

"Hey." Oh. Jeremy. "Hey, Bastian? Sebastian." Maybe he had spaced out more than he could have. Should have. He had no idea. "Hey." His brother-in-law was in front of him, nudging him gently. "Christ, did someone come in and dope you up, too?"

He blinked, focusing on Jeremy. "Sorry. This fucked up is all natural. I can't..." Focus, keep up with what was going on, stop dissociating. He volleyed off of Jim, usually, and that level of crazy kept him going.

Maybe this level of drugged up to his eyeballs was something Bastian would volley off of, too.

"Right." Right, but Jeremy was giving him crazy eyes, and the girls were nowhere to be seen. "I'm calling your sister."

He rubbed a hand over his eyes, sitting forward and cutting his eyes sideways at Jim, looking for any sign of... anything. Recognition, alertness, wanting to do anything but stare at the television that didn't even have the sound up.

"I'm calling your sister," Jeremy said again, and Bastian didn't argue. Didn't protest, nothing, because he was tired and fucked up and he couldn't do this, not this way. Not like this.

"Sure." He shifted, sitting shoulder to shoulder with his unresponsive partner. It was a good thing that Jim was at least a warm body, because he wasn't much else just then, and that was fucking miserable.

They couldn't live like this. He couldn't, and how had it all come to this? When had he become the person who relied on someone else's crazy to make it through the day, the week, whatever they were doing? He had never been that person, and now he was. He was, and he should be making calls and doing things and time was blinking by in jumps and starts, and then his sister was slapping the hell out of him for some reason.

"Fuck! What?" Christ, that stung and not at all in a fun way. He rubbed at the side of his face, sitting more upright.

The shaky sigh she let out seemed relieved. "I have been talking to you for the last five minutes, Sebastian. Five minutes. Do you... I don't know what to do."

Sabrina had always known what to do. She was his older sister, she had bossed him around for as long as he could remember, and she never, ever did not know what to do.

He leaned forward instead, sliding an arm around her neck to hug her loosely. "I can't fucking do this. It was different when he shot himself, he was still in there, I can't take this, he doesn't _move_..."

"I will fix this. Have I ever, ever... not fixed something when I told you that I would?" She didn't pull free from him, but her hands were on his face, cupping his cheeks, thumbs rubbing slowly. "I will fix this."

He licked his bottom lip, focused on her. "I'm sorry." Sorry that he was a shitty brother and had been fucking mental since well before Jim, sorry that he was intruding on her life quite so much, sorry that he couldn't get his shit together enough because his lord and master and partner was a drug zombie.

"Don't be sorry." She was looking at him, stroking him, and her fingertips were wet. "Don't be sorry. Just be okay."

He shook his head, feeling miserable and angry and fucked up because it wasn't okay, it wasn't fucking okay, they'd been played and played and _lost_ , really _lost_ that time, but he trusted that Sabrina would try. "Okay. Okay."

"Okay." The brush of her lips against his forehead made him feel six years old, and it made him feel stupidly safe. "I want you to get up now, and Jeremy will get Jim. We'll be going to the hospital because this clearly cannot wait. And you're going to take everything I prescribe, Sebastian. Both of you. I mean it. And therapy. You need therapy."

"Yeah, okay." He gave a shaky laugh, only letting her go when she started to pull back. His cheeks were wet, and he wasn't sure whose fault that was. "Is this what the much bandied about nervous breakdown feels like?"

Another of those brushes against his forehead. "I think.. something like, yes." Jeremy's voice murmured something behind them, quiet and steady, and that felt good. Felt... felt not at all like the rest of his day. "All right. Come on. We're going to the hospital now. The car's come round, and the girls are with Barbara." Barbara. Barbara, the nanny. She was usually off on Saturdays.

Bastian was still mostly sure it was Saturday, though apparently time was a deceptive, sly shit not to be trusted. He stood up, watching Jeremy coaxing Jim along. It was agonizing to watch, knowing the stunts Jim had pulled off just weeks before, knowing the plans they had. He wasn't a physical powerhouse, but he was nimble and fucking vicious, and brains put more weight behind an attack than muscle. Bastian let his sister pull him along, eyes on Jim. Drugs, fine, therapy, fine, as long as they got Jim functioning. He didn't have to be fucking take over the world manic, but functioning.

It wasn't that much to ask for, was it?

* * *

He didn't remember much about the hospital. There were... x-rays and some sort of machine, and at one point Jim started coming around again, making vague sounds and murmurs and it made Bastian crazy because he knew now that it was going to end. It was going to end, and he couldn't bear knowing that.

He still had watched and tried to be there, tried to interact. His sister hadn't dragged him off for treatment separate of Jim, and that was a relief, that they were back in the guest house and he could at least focus enough to think about liquidating things. What he'd need to do and in what order. His sister had said something about a therapist, and trying not to get him committed which he supposed was nice of her. It wouldn't have worked well on him, and he felt like he was coming around again. 

A little. Not enough to call Irene back, not even enough to make any of the other calls he had to make, but a little.

Besides. A few texts could take care of getting her out of Spain and back to England, even if a few changes in her appearance would be necessary. Malgueret undoubtedly had a friend or four who could do it. That brought him back to the other texts, and he hated that he was going to have to ask. Hated it, wanted to stab something over it, whatever.

The drugs were good. They just weren't that good yet.

Sabrina had said she'd gotten a friend, who he was going to be seeing, to write an advance prescription after giving her his symptom list. He'd dutifully said fuck it, taken the pill under Sabrina's watchful gaze and gone back to eyeing Jim.

Still, the texts, well. There was a lot of business he could handle that way, so he started to work at it, doggedly handling first Irene's problem, and then sending the request, such as it was, for Malgueret to gift them with his presence. Meanwhile, Sabrina mixed some sort of shake-thing meal for Jim because it might be less of a pain. And he was on the okay side of the drugs, which made Bastian not want to leave his side, where he'd at least follow through an action even if he wasn't following why.

"It will be fine." Sabrina was looking at him, pouring whatever it was into a glass. "MacNeil is extremely conservative, but you don't have to call in your, your crazy surgeon person. I know someone in Glasgow who might...."

"Too late. I already texted him. He'll be here tomorrow evening." He was leaning both elbows on the table, eyes flicking from his phone to her face to Jim's eyes. "I think he does it more for the enjoyment than the money."

He couldn't help the way his mouth twitched at her glare. Smiling didn't seem to want to work, but his mouth still moved as if it would like to do that. "Yes, well. He lost his license. That worries me just a little."

Bastian licked his bottom lip. "Sabrina. You realize Jim's the fucking Napoleon of crime." Which made that their exile to Saint Helena, because they'd already done Elba and Waterloo, hadn't they? Right at the fucking Eye. "And I've been his right hand for years. And you're worried that there's a guy with no medical license coming?"

Her lips were pressed together in a way that implied a certain prudishness. "I'm sure he's just fine," she replies, and that was funny. It was clear to Bastian that it wasn't any such thing. 

Bastian rubbed a hand over his face, glancing over to Jim. "He'll probably find it too fucking funny, but he'll get the chips out. I survived him." He gave a shaky exhale, contemplating smoking now that he felt like he wasn't going to lose minutes and hours at a time. "Jim spent a couple of weeks on the roof shooting pigeons. And anything else that moved. We all survived that." And it hadn't been long ago, though it felt like it. They'd hardly turned around and bam, right back down again.

It was time. Time to get out of this, to start making safe bets instead of risky gambles. This thing with them, there was no room for error. They had become weirdly codependent at some point, they were fucked up, but they had to learn to cope. Bastian figured if he got some of the spark back in Jim's dark eyes, he'd be able to cope with safe bets and less risk. He'd done enough risk.

Sabrina was watching him as she gave Jim a straw and the shake while Bastian considered a cigarette. "I left one of our people hung out to dry today because I couldn't get my shit together enough to follow what was going on. I'm still not really tracking. That's a horrible feeling."

"I suggested that you see someone when you came home." There was no sense of _I told you so_ about it, just his sister being herself and worrying.

"Yeah, well. Damage was probably done years ago." He sat back in his chair, and lit his cigarette. "I thought we were all right."

Yeah. That look, he'd been getting since he was six. "Sebastian. You haven't been all right for a very long time. And I'm not sure Jim ever was."

He gave a startled laugh, inhaling as he glanced over to Jim sucking down the shake. That was a small miracle, he supposed, Jim eating of his own volition. "No, I don't think so. Just. Out of curiosity, when did I seem not all right?"

Sabrina shrugged, watching Jim, then turning her eyes to Sebastian instead. "When you came home that first time. After that, it seemed... to spiral."

"It was a rough few months leading up to that." Bastian watched his sister distantly, focused on breathing in smoke because he could. "With the Sherlock obsession."

"And what was that all about?" She reached out and stole his cigarette. Physicians. Always bitching about everyone else's habits. "I understand he's brilliant but so what? Why is that such a threat exactly?"

"It's not a threat." Bastian closed his eyes. "Someone else in the world who was just like him. The hilarious thing is that the asshole faked his death, too."

"No kidding?" That brought about a long quiet between them. "I just don't understand why it's so important. Important enough to put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. Then again, I don't usually understand that, so I can't say it's a new consideration."

"Yeah. It's uh. Not something we've talked about." Bastian gave Jim a look, but it wasn't as if he was actually going to respond. He'd settled in to the fact that Jim was gone until someone pried the chips out of him. "I can't... I'll be honest, I think he really fucking tried to kill himself."

Sabrina gave him back the cigarette. "Basty. No one who puts a gun in their mouths and then pulls the trigger is doing anything else."

He squinted at her and took another drag, because she didn't keep it burning well enough, either. "I know. But I couldn't leave him like that. And he survived it, so..."

"And you love him." His sister knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't still be chasing Jim around if that weren't the case.

He laughed, nodding, closing his eyes. Yeah, he loved Jim. Didn't matter if Jim loved him back, Jim needed him, and that was all right. Bastian would always take what he could, and he didn't need a lot to live on. A little scrap, a little adventure, seeing the light in Jim's eyes, that wicked brilliance. "Well, no shit. I... Yeah."

It didn't surprise him when she reached over, her thumb rubbing slowly over the jut of his thumb down to his wrist. "Are you happy, Basty? I mean. When things are like this."

Like this. Like, him and Jim, or when everything went to fucking hell and Mycroft Holmes got involved and took another notch out of both of them. Bastian held her gave, not giving in to the urge to watch her hand on his wrist. "Right now? I'm scared out of my mind and fucking miserable, Brina. When he's all right, I'm all right. I can handle it."

Her fingers curled around his forearm. "He shot himself, Basty. That isn't a sign of a man who is anything but unstable. I wanted to say before, but I knew then that you knew."

"Yeah." He finally broke gaze, looking for an ashtray and ending up with a cup saucer. Good enough. "I knew. Shit, I was with him for three years before that, you think I didn't know Jim was unstable?"

"I know you know, I just don't think you were considering your own issues at the time. My god, Sebastian, you need more therapy than half the county! And that's saying something. Never mind his need for the same, and proper drugs, not these things that they're doing to him now. This is... it's too much. It's cruel. You might have to grind it up and put it in his tea, though."

"He bit me when I tried to give him painkillers." Bastian fished out another cigarette, because it at least felt good to be alert enough to smoke. If Jim hadn't been steadily managing to drink dinner and not choke, he would've lit one for him, too. "I did put my fingers in his mouth, though. Sort of asking for it. I'll figure something out."

The way his sister laughed seemed surprised, amused. "You can always sneak up on him with hypodermics."

"I suppose it'll keep things interesting." Jim was watching them, though he wasn't sure how much was actually making it through the drugs. It would probably be a fight every day, and Bastian realistically figured that he'd maybe last another year or two before Jim beat him out on it and got bored of playing along.

He'd still take it.

"So tell me about your crazy surgeon." Her shoulder nudged his. "And when he's going to arrive."

He snorted. "Tomorrow. I don't really think you want to hear about him. Not really. He's always been useful for trauma, though. Managed to get me walking about." Though it had taken some fighting. He had packed Jim's mouth, too, kept them from being found out by Bastian running down the stairs and throwing Jim on the mercy of an already strapped emergency.

"I'm still pissed you didn't call."

"How the fuck could I have called? I was unconscious for something stupid like two weeks. Or it felt like it. I called you as soon as I was coherent." He wasn't even sure he'd been coherent when he'd called her.

It didn't keep her from tweaking his nose. "Next time, leave your little criminal mastermind better instructions."

"Eh, he had them. He just ignored them." He didn't tell her that he didn't think he'd survive another round like that. Didn't need to when he and Jim were sitting there looking like prisoners of war, and he had a nice new set of stitches from where they'd put his scalp back down after that hole in his head trick. Bastian leaned back instead, and inhaled again. Jim had sat back from his drink, mostly done and watching the cigarette a little. Not much more of that, he just had to tell himself that. Had to tell himself that Malgueret would manage to fix it somehow.

Somehow.

If he did it enough, maybe he would even believe it.

* * *

"Fuck. Honestly, the things you people expect me to do. Miracles, even. One day, I'll be out of them, and then what will you do?"

"Find another crazy asshole that I have blackmail material on," Bastian suggested from the chair on the other side of the bed. "C'mon, you like the challenge."

"Yes, I like challenges, but this. I can't fully see the one in the skull, but there's some sort of trigger with the one in the shoulder. I'll need to be very careful, both ways. You understand that, yes?" Malgueret didn't look at all like himself. He looked... serious, pale grey eyes startling in their gravity. "Sullivan is good. I'm good, despite the whole license bit. But you should be aware of the risks."

It wasn't particularly good that Malgueret looked so serious about it, not laughing and smug for once. Bastian ran a hand back through his hair. "Look. They're both giving out doses. He can't even eat until it starts to wear off. That's not fucking living. He can't talk. I'm getting fucking morse code once in a while, and staring, and that's fucking it."

Malgueret nodded. "I know. I know, but you should be aware and now you are. I told him the same thing when I had to put you back together. Maybe it was a different kind of dangerous, but there you have it."

"He wouldn't want to live like this." Bastian shifted in the chair, elbows on his knees as he kept his focus on Malgueret. "If you don't do it, I'm going to have to slit his throat."

He could see Sullivan shift, see her slim hand squeeze one thin shoulder as if that would somehow brace him. "You know, he managed to get us out two steps ahead of everything when my wife died." When they killed her, more like. "I will do it."

He'd also kept record of the proof, so. Bastian nodded. "Thank you. All I can do is ask you to try." And he'd watch and wait, because it seemed wrong to leave the room when Jim was stretched out on the bed.

"I can't believe we're doing this." His sister's arms were crossed tightly over her chest, her hands tucked beneath her elbows. She had brought them all of the necessities, but it was bothering her. Deeply.

Sullivan shifted, chin jerking up in response. " _We're_ not doing anything. You aren't doing anything."

"Desperate times," Bastian shrugged, making a vague gesture for his sister to join him where he was -- out of the way, but close enough to be useful if everything went to hell. Hell, if they could only get the one in Jim's shoulder out, that would be excellent.

He would take what he could get. As much as he could get.

"All right. Let's get started, then."

And all he could see was the trigger in Jim's shoulder or his head going and he had to stand up and leave, because, yeah. He could do a lot, he could watch a lot of gore if he was doing it himself. He'd had his fingers in the hole in Jim's soft palate. He just couldn't sit there and watch him die, even if it was the right and honorable thing to do, to supervise, to be there in case it did happen.

He needed a drink.

He needed a lot of drinks, he needed to be drunk under the table in ways that he didn't want to contemplate, and so he headed straight for the kitchen and started rifling the cabinets. There wasn't any beer, but there was a whiskey that seemed doable, though he wasn't sure he would've said no to drain cleaner just then. Getting it open and pouring himself a hearty three fingers worth was easy, mechanical, because he was such a fucking chickenshit he couldn't stay there and watch. He couldn't see whether or not there was a charge, whether or not Malgueret could get it out of Jim or if Jim would die with it intact. The horror of the thing was that the medication being released would clearly have to be resupplied somehow. It implied that Mycroft Holmes had some plan in place, whether it was a tranquilizer dart and a surgeon on a monthly basis or something worse. Even if Malgueret got it out, it might not be enough to make a damn in a month or two.

All he could do was fight it tooth and nail, and wait. And not think much further than a month or two ahead, if they even made it that far. He swigged the first glass, and then poured himself another and perched on one of the chairs to wait with his head in his hands.

Bastian was accustomed to the need for patience. He was a sniper by trade, he was right-hand man to a criminal mastermind of epic proportions. He knew how to wait something out, only this... this wasn't something over which he could force himself calm. It was too much, but he waited because there was nothing else to do. Waited and sat in silence and didn't look at anything, and drank. He eventually started to wonder what the drug interactions were between what he was taking and booze, but figured that he wasn't really planning on sleeping or bathing anytime soon. It should all work out.

"What did I tell you about mixing alcohol with your meds?" Somehow, his sister didn't sound so scary when he was sincerely drunk. "Give me that, you pillock. Hand it over before I make you."

He held up the glass, letting her snatch it from his fingers. "They're not done yet, are they?"

Brina sat down beside him, eyeing the remains of the liquor in the glass. "They're discussing whether or not it's safe to try getting out the one at the base of his skull. I couldn't watch any longer."

"Yeah, I'll leave that to him. Did they get the one out of his shoulder?" Even if he was just getting one dose, Bastian supposed that might be bearable. It'd at least be something, an improvement on nothing at all.

"They did. The trigger wasn't that bad, apparently. Your surgeon is still a little worried about the one in his head. I figured I should come check on you while they decided on their approach."

"Here I am. Didn't go anywhere." He waved his hand a little, still sans glass. "I uh. Just couldn't stay and watch." Couldn't know. Couldn't anything, and his phone had gone off in his pocket three or four times. He couldn't bring himself to care enough to do anything about it.

"We could go see the girls if you like. Or just step outside, get a bit of sunshine. It's actually pretty outside today." She caught his hand.

He glanced down at her fingers, and then back to her face. "I don't suppose that's actually a suggestion." And he needed to work on whatever was going on with his phone, but he couldn't be bothered. Couldn't care.

"No. Not so much. We can sit here or we can sit outside. Seems to me that outside is quite a bit better." Yeah, and he couldn't hear them panicking if something went wrong. That had probably crossed her mind as well.

Bastian was fine with that, because he didn't really enjoy the sound of the two of them yelling at each other. It wasn't interesting or enjoyable. "Outside then." He stood up, still looking back over his shoulder towards the bedroom hallway. Yeah, outside he could at least smoke without accidentally burning down the house.

The sun was out but it was still pretty cool. Brina sat down beside him on the front step, a glass of water in her hand. He had missed her doing that, and then there it was. "At least drink something. Then you can give me a cigarette and we can chain smoke until they're done."

"Mmmhmm. Hopefully I don't have to come up with some sort of suicide cover story." Murder suicide didn't really suit his tastes, as much as it seemed viable. Bastian took slow sips, just watching her.

"So hand it over." She reached out and stole his cigarettes and his lighter. "Then, after this, you and I are both quitting. It's a bad filthy habit."

"I read that nicotine's very helpful for the mentally ill. Schizophrenics use it as self medication," Bastian offered, knowing it was apropos of nothing. "You shouldn't deny me that. I could start hallucinating any day now."

The fact that she laughed shouldn't have felt so good. "Well, if that were the case, I would hope you would at least get something better. Marijuana or something."

"There isn't any nicotine in pot. Anyway, I spent enough time fucked up without that." He leaned to take his pack back from her, and grabbed his lighter.

For quite some time, they sat there together, smoking. One cigarette after another, steady and silent, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh. There had been years where all they did was yell at one another over the phone. There had spent his first year in college learning about one another. They had gone out to eat in the middle of the night at least once a week to laugh over stupid math jokes or the latest medical atrocity she was studying and bitch about their father.

It felt a lot like that except she was married and established and Bastian had run his career up and then back down a flag pole and he'd started over with Jim. It was all screwed up, but he did feel like a first year college student all over again. Young and scared and two steps from stupid except not all at the same time.

When the front door opened, it made both of them jump simultaneously.

Bastian leaned back, tilting his head to look up at Malgueret. It was hard to guess what his facial expression was, though Bastian had a few guesses. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Or something like it." His nose wrinkled. "Sullivan is upstairs with your little madman. We got the one out of his shoulder without any real difficulty."

"Left the one in his head in, then." Bastian looked back out over the yard instead. "I figure that was the plan."

The sound of cloth, of motion, came from behind him, and Malgueret reached over Brina's shoulder and stole her cigarette. "Less the plan, more of a necessity, at least for so long as we lack a theatre and a cadre of medical professionals. I might be able to get hold of those things more easily in Italy, but for now? Under these conditions? It's in."

Brina turned and looked up at him, mouth pursed crankily. "Under these conditions?"

"Well, it is bedroom butchery," Bastian pointed out as he rubbed the edge of his jaw. "Mycroft knew what I'd do. Knew my resources. The one in his shoulder was expected to disappear. The one at the base of his skull wasn't. It's a warning to me as much as anything."

"I'm going to destroy him." His sister sounded contemplative, quiet. "I am going to find some way to make him utterly and completely miserable until the day he dies."

Malgueret snorted. "I wish you luck. Nasty bit of tech, that."

Bastian inhaled, taking his time before he said anything. "No. You leave him alone. I surrendered. I gave up. I can't do this shit any more. Not if I want to live to maybe see fifty."

"He's probably right." He recognized that tone of voice. It was pissy, yes, but slow and thoughtful. He hated that tone of voice. "Any bastard who had the sheer amount of forethought to situate a chip like that where it is? It's remarkable."

"Mmmm." Bastian was letting smoke curl out of his mouth, just enjoying the taste of it, the smell. "Fuck. Right, has to be an improvement, pleasure doing business with you as always."

"You're a miserable fucking patient," he was informed. "Terrible. Sullivan withheld sex for weeks, kept trying to convince me to send you on your way. At least she thinks crime lord in there is entertaining. I might get laid sometime this month."

"Buy her something prettier than her, then, with what's going to show up in your bank account." He rubbed his hand over his face. "Right. I think I've smoked myself a headache. Or I'm sobering up."

Brina reached over and smacked him on the shoulder. "Don't be a big baby. I am absolutely certain that you are a terrible patient. Also, insulting a woman's beauty or lack thereof undoubtedly means that you were even worse."

He snorted, slouching and considering standing up. There was no rush. Malgueret was still in the doorway, smoking behind them and Jim was sedated in the bedroom. "I'm no judge of female beauty. I had one run-in with that in my life, and that was plenty, thanks."

Oh, that wasn't fair, Brina laughing at him. His sister was a bitch. "Christina, wasn't that her name? Big brown eyes, bat-blind, read too many trashy novels?"

"Christ." His laugh sounded a little uneven to his own ears, but it came easily. "Took forever to get it up, then I spent the whole time being confused. What a fucking mess."

"She was pretty, though," she offered to Malgueret. "And afterwards, she moved in with a pretty girl and her boyfriend. Well. I think it was her boyfriend. I have no idea."

Malgueret snorted. "I should be so lucky. Sulli's got a thing about sharing."

"And that thing is 'no'." He knew how that went, but it at least went both ways. Brina had asked, before she'd known who Jim was, if Jim knew the difference between love and possession. Maybe for Sebastian there wasn't a difference. It didn't matter if there was love. There was... something. Ownership, possession. He was very tempted to go to the bedroom and lie down with Jim and just wait. Fuck the phone calls and fuck the text messages.

"Fuck's sake. You're jittering. Go upstairs. She'll have him properly bandaged up by now, you can... whatever."

Bastian gave in, and stood up, steadying himself slightly on his sister's shoulder. "That's a bit much like necrophilia for me." And he had the memory of Jim in the shower, moaning and pushing back hard. That was how he liked it. That was what he wanted back, Jim real and present and touching him, and yet he also knew that he needed to go and look at him, to see him, to be sure. Of everything, bbecause getting Jim back was pending. Close, not there yet, but close. Bastian brushed past Malgueret, continued carefully through the front room to the stairs and up to the bedroom. Sullivan was adjusting something in an IV bag, eyeing the readout on some sort of scary machine that made Bastian feel paranoid just seeing it there.

"Well." Why did she always sound so pissy? "I was expecting you ten minutes ago."

"Sister detained me." And his own nerves. He didn't really look at her. Jim was naked under the sheet, and his shoulder was bandaged. Bastian settled into the chair beside the bed, finally glancing up at her. She was watching him, hand cupped, and she reached out, holding her closed fist above him until he offered his hand, palm up, and she dropped a thin bumpy wafer into it.

"Bitch of a thing. The one in his head is a bit bigger. Different style. We could see it, but the location made things difficult under the circumstances."

"I figured that was the plan all along. It's all right. It's better than nothing. He might start talking again." The silence would've been a slow death for him, with no hope involved like his physical injury had.

"Or we could get a better grasp on it and manage with proper equipment." Funny, to have the snide bitch holding out something like hope. "I'll let them know you're staying. Try to rest."

"Thanks." He set the chip aside on the beside table, and was eyeing Jim to work out the best way to crawl into bed with him without disturbing him.

Sullivan spoke again as she moved away from them. "Left side. It'll be easier to crawl in and the chips were both on the right. There's only a small incision at the base of the skull where we checked to see if it was possible to remove it."

"Thanks." He started to toe off his shoes, taking off his shirt. He wasn't sleepy, but he was bone deep tired, and pulling up the sheet to climb in with Jim was easy. He didn't wake up, he didn't roll over, he didn't say anything, but Bastian could believe that he was better. That he would be better.

That was enough.

He slid an arm low across Jim's back, closed his eyes, and hoped.

* * *

Sebastian Moran had been a colonel. He had been a sniper. He had stood at the right hand of a man who made criminal masterminds look like two-bit thugs. All of that translated into a hyperawareness of epic proportions. He could feel someone's gaze on him in any given situation.

Even in his sleep.

He opened his eyes, hoping desperately that it wasn't Sullivan or his sister staring at him. Instead, a dark, beady gaze stared directly at him, cognizant and aware. Maybe not entirely alert, but... there. There and real in a way that nothing had been for a very long time.

Hadn't been since that morning at the Eye, before that bastard had dropped him like a rock. "Jim?"

Blink. Blink, and then his mouth opened and a name rolled off of his tongue, slow and steady. "Sebastian."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Jim." He leaned up, pulling Jim in close to him. "Fuck, you can talk again."

"Ow." It wasn't a protest. It wasn't anything except a statement of fact. "Have you been letting someone cut on me?"

"Malgueret. They put two chips in you. You were completely fucking overmedicated."

"Oh." Two letter words seemed to be in today. "And now?" Okay. Maybe three letters.

"They could only get the one out. The other might've killed you." And having Jim alive was important.

"Hmm." He seemed to be considering that, and then his eyes closed and Bastian thought that maybe he was going to sleep again. A yawn and a slow stretch said otherwise. "What is it?"

"It's an atypical antipsychotic, Brina said. Some new thing. Supposed to have fewer side effects." Except for the completely out of it factor, of course. He stretched his fingers against Jim's back, just watching him.

"Your sister has wanted to drug me forever. I suppose she has what she wants now." There was nothing fatalistic about it, but it wasn't quite Jim.

Dammit.

Bastian closed his eyes. He needed to give it time. Jim still had probably weeks worth of too much of the shit in his veins. Nothing was immediate. "We'll figure out a way to get the other one out."

Snickering should never be the response to a statement like that. "I sincerely doubt that Mycroft Holmes intended that to happen. LIkely would have soldered it to the inside of my skull if he could." He breathed in and then breathed out. At least whatever the medication did, it wore off without the microchip. It made Jim more... well. It made him capable of speech at least.

"Honestly, I think he did. The one in your shoulder was... bait?" Bastian shrugged, and right, if Jim thought it, then his earlier hunch about the same was dead on, and that was a relief. "He'll kill us next time."

Jim shifted, turning his face away as if that would change something. The motion was awkward, slow. "Maybe."

Bastian exhaled, focused on Jim's skin against his, his hand on him, the fact that he could hear Jim's voice and that Jim was moving. That he was alive and almost alert. There wasn't really anything to say -- their mission at the Eye had been a horrendous failure, and something in Jim had predicated that, had led to it all. Some thread that had unravelled, but Bastian hadn't had time to really contemplate it because he'd been singularly focused on getting Jim back.

"I'll do anything you want, but don't make me live through that again. I almost didn't get you back at all."

Eyes closed. Face... slack. He was going to end up having to kill Jim and then kill himself because he couldn't live like this. He couldn't.

When Jim spoke, it almost frightened him. "Fine."

That was a nice passive-aggressive fine. Bastian closed his eyes, and leaned in, pressing his teeth against Jim's shoulder. "Please, Jim."

Please. God, he hadn't said that and meant it to anyone else in a very long time. "I said.. fine." And then he opened his eyes, and oh.

Oh.

That was better, sharper. Closer to real, and Bastian felt sharp relief at that. After all, the drugs should make him less manic but no less wicked. It might not take that away, might not take away anything except the crazy urge to shoot things, to shoot himself. That was less like punishment and more like a relief. Nothing said they couldn't carry on with crime -- there was crime, after all, please Jim will you fix it for me, and then there was blowing up the Eye. Two separate things, and Bastian honestly much more preferred kneecapping a drug lord who wasn't playing nicely, that sort of personalized violence, to the mass variety. 

They could still burn the world down around them, one room at a time. They could still have everything they had always had, especially if the drugs took away the obsession Jim had with the Holmes brothers. Just them and the world, and if Jim wanted to destroy a city or even a small country, well. South America should be enough to satisfy that urge, surely.

"I feel slow. Stupid."

"You're not. Jesus, that shit's probably going to be too high in your system for weeks. Give it time to wear out. When did he get you with it?" Jim shifted against him, head pressed against the pillow. Bastian had to say he liked frustration on Jim's face occasionally.

"I don't know. Right after." Jim opened his eyes and looked at him, all serious mien and tired eyes. "I fucked up."

Christ. "Yeah. I think we both did." Because he was supposed to screen for things, and he'd trusted that Jim was at full capacity despite that he'd put a hole in his mouth and he wasn't. And it showed just then, and they'd gotten caught.

Twice.

"I'm not myself," Jim told him finally. "I'm not...."

Not on the ball, not able to cope. Too deep in his medicated state. Bastian shifted slightly. "Right, well. I did just say that the drug overdose wasn't anywhere near out of your system. Give it time. Jesus, you just came out from anesthesia."

That filthy scowl almost made him sick with gratitude. "I have been sedated and drugged into idiocy. Fuck you."

"No, it was idiocy when you sat there for an hour with a fork in your hand and a waffle underneath it. This is a vast fucking improvement, Jim." He was probably a good three seconds from getting punched, but fuck it felt good to get dirty looks and Jim looking pissed off. "I'm pretty sure you're not going to piss yourself now."

The pout was nice. "Fuck you," Jim said again, bitchy and clearly tired. It was no wonder he was running a little low on energy even now, and the way his eyes were half-closed, bruised, said more than anything.

Bastian shifted faintly closer, content to lie there just then. "Go back to sleep. Then we'll contemplate you on solid food again."

The nasty muttering was stupidly reassuring. So what if it was mostly incoherent? Who cared? At least it was something, and god, it was wonderful. He was deeply grateful. If Jim had still been the same, if the chips had released some sort of fatal dose or the charges had been set off by their attempts to remove them....

Well, he wasn't going to think about that. He was going to close his eyes and feel Jim against his side and listen to the quiet angry noises until Jim dozed off, mumbling about strangling him.

* * *

He gave it another month before he let Jim leave his sister's patch of land. When Jim started filling water guns with red tinted water, Bastian supposed it was a sign that Jim was terribly restless. They needed to do something, as retirement retirement wasn't going to work. So he packed them both into the Audi, and drove back to London proper, heading for the Diogenes club because Jim had gotten a brilliant idea.

Things were better. Strange, but less likely to explode. His sister had Jim medicated to an acceptable level, and Jim was taking it, mostly because Brina had insisted that he could take the meds she gave him or Mycroft Holmes could chase him down and give him another chip in the head. Malgueret had given them a sour-faced look, but he had agreed.

Bastian had by god paid him enough for that, and he was still taking the shit she wanted him to, even if he didn't think therapy was something he ever wanted to try.

"How long are we going to sit here staring at the fucking door?" That crankiness was only natural. Jim detested both Holmes brothers and would still like to bury them in concrete overcoats.

"Until the lazy slug comes out, or you get pissed at me and we go in anyway." At least in the car he could smoke.

"If he isn't here in two minutes, we go in. I am already pissed." He didn't sound quite as angry as he used to do, but that was all right. "Perhaps if we go in there enough, they will find themselves tossing him out due to their irritation. We should attempt to get John Watson to participate."

"Eh, he might, actually. No love lost there." Something to think about, though he'd have to make sure Jim wasn't around if they ever tried it. "Shall I set a timer?"

That irritated glance pleased him. "I can still count. And read a watch."

"I didn't say it was for you." He played it off, smirking as he glanced down at his own watch briefly and then back up the street where he knew the man was most likely to come down.

The response to that was short, pithy, less crazy little fucker and more cranky. It was sort of enjoyable in its way, and definitely less dangerous.

Bastian snorted, put his cigarette out in the ash tray, and leaned back in his chair. After two and a half minutes, he nudged Jim's shoulder gently. "Let's go in there."

There was something enjoyable about that decision, made even more so by watching Jim get out of the car and head for the doors of the club with a determination that would likely have terrified the faint of heart. Not Bastian, but, well. That was different.

He shadowed Jim into the club, catching the door just as it started to shut behind Jim, staying a few steps behind him because they weren't going to get caught and balled up again, not this time. They were there with a plan and... an outreach, he supposed. A plan to keep Jim busy, to keep Mycroft Holmes from metaphorically snapping their necks again. 

The hardbodies who had dragged him out last time were present and accounted for, staring at both of them from the other end of the hall. They looked two steps from dragging both of them off again. He suspected that Jim's determined expression scared them as much as it did most people.

Bastian brought a finger up to his lips, half a signal that they were going to at least try to play along with the silence games. All they needed to do was get Mycroft's attention, and get him out of that silent space and into a room where they could talk. No one needed to drag anyone anywhere, as long as Jim stayed quiet. 

And he was good at quiet, now. Things were vastly different, at least insofar as business went. Jim still had that edge, could still terrify people with the blade of his tongue, but it was a work in progress to keep it up now. The wickedness of him wasn't so much toned down; it was more that he was less impulsive, more likely to carry through or not based on reasons better than just because, and Bastian was fine with that. He didn't mind a little less threat in his life, a little less likelihood that Jim might self harm. His tastes hadn't changed, and Bastian was sporting a nasty welt on the back of his shoulder from two nights before, where a bit of a row had turned into something sexual and quite a bit nicer than a bit of a row. He missed Jim's libido, but the change from off-the-charts to higher-than-normal was bearable given what his own course of drugs did to his urge to fuck.

The room around them was stock silent except for the quiet noise of Mycroft Holmes setting down his teacup onto a saucer, giving them a _look_.

Jim's smirk didn't have to be seen to be felt. He moved, hands shifting, fingers tapping out something that would likely have driven Bastian batty. Mycroft seemed to get the point of it, however, and so he rose from his chair and walked towards them.

Bastian took a back step, waiting in the doorway for Mycroft to pass, for Jim to come close enough to fall into step with. He left the clever little things to Jim, because it was Jim, still, by some miracle; if it wasn't morse code, he wasn't going to try, and he'd had his fill of that a while ago.

The guards were still eyeing them with suspicion, nervous and twitchy. They didn't say anything despite that, and Mycroft carried on just as though he were not curious when Bastian knew it had to be burning a hole in him. Mycroft Holmes was a patient man, though. He played the long game well, and had managed to use it to back him and Jim into a corner.

The silence persisted for a few moments in the next room with Mycroft Holmes smiling pleasantly at them both. "This is quite the positive change from how you presented yourselves last time. I see you're feeling better, Mr. Moriarty. And you, Mr. Moran? No lasting damage?"

Jim's voice was spider patient and calm, just the hint of a smile at its edge. "You have dirty work to be done. We can do it. Excessively well, in fact."

Mycroft sat down again, his expression placid and thoughtful as he looked between them. "I was surprised you took as long a sabbatical as you did, Mr. Moriarty. But you are correct. I do have 'dirty' work to be done."

Bastian stood solidly by his side as Jim slid his hands into his pockets, watching Mycroft with hooded gaze. "Shall we negotiate, then? Do we get greater financial consideration if we promise not to reveal to the world that your brother cheated death?"

Holmes snorted. "He'll do that in his own time, so I think not. I would rather lay out your whole sordid story first. No, you are negotiating from a position of weakness."

Bastian clenched his jaw, and stood still, watching Jim's expression as much as Mycroft's pursed smugness.

That smile never faltered, didn't so much as twitch. "The best place to go for the throat, I would think, but never mind that. We are open for business, and I feel sure that you would prefer to be our customer instead."

There was something about Mycroft's expression that made Bastian want to go around later and slash the man's tires. He nodded, though, looking at them both for a long moment. "There are ways you could make yourselves useful, yes."

After that, the silence stretched. Jim was better at waiting now, could use it as a viable strategy where he hadn't before. Bastian was glad he had taken something for his aching left knee before they had come inside. He relaxed his stance, shifting his weight as necessary. The way Jim was standing never seemed to change, loose and intense all at once, or maybe that was just the way he looked at people. Maybe it was just the fact that Jim hadn't had his joints and limbs torn to pieces and put back together twice. Mycroft Holmes looked sideways at Bastian, and inclined his head faintly. "I'll put together a list."

Jim was relaxed after that, so much so that Bastian couldn't recall ever having seen him that way. "And we will provide you with our pricing."

"Excellent. Now, if you please, I'd appreciate it if you both stopped darkening my doorstep. I'll contact you at your usual location." Just to reiterate that he could get at them any time, but Bastian wasn't going to think about it or process it just then.

Besides.

They had boltholes in places even Mycroft Holmes wouldn't be able to ferret out if they didn't want him to find them.

Jim's stance shifted, and his eyes turned hard and hot, liquid with determination. "We will see you later," he drawled, and turned, brushing against Bastian's arm.

That was a good signal to go, so he turned to go with Jim, side by side and scanning ahead in case anything went wrong. Things were still... not quite right, and he spent a lot of time comparing before and before and after, but it was all good. It was okay, and they would be okay, even if it meant they were strolling out of a club after making a contact instead of Jim threatening to turn someone's penis inside out and stuff it up their nose if they fucked up something. It wasn't like they refrained from those sorts of over the top things, but they didn't need to discuss it ad nauseum. It just happened and that was pleasing.

They were settled into the car before Jim spoke again. "Take me to dinner."

"To dinner. All right. Where?" He glanced over at Jim, starting up the engine, waiting for it to turn over.

"Somewhere ridiculously expensive where we can shock people." That sly smile, he lived for it. It meant Jim had something on his mind, and that was always, without fail, entertaining.

Bastian slid his hand over to rest on Jim's thigh while he pulled out onto the street. "I have a couple of places in mind."

One eyebrow arched in response. "They had better be good."

"Shockingly good, Jim. Trust me on this." He still wasn't allowed to pick his own suits, but he knew food, and keeping Jim interested and alert and challenged was his sole goal in life. Now he had a lot more time in which to do that, and maybe enough time to subtly fuck Mycroft Holmes up the ass via hidden fees and ridiculous amounts of money, which would make both of them feel better.

When he had found Jim on the rooftop of St. Bart's, he had never thought he would have any of this again. Now he did, and he wouldn't take anything for it.


End file.
